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John_Huber's avatar
John_Huber
Level 4
12 years ago

Vault Storage Group Configuration

I am looking for input on the best way of configuring Vault Store Groups.  Our current config. is one Storage Group divided into 2 stores.  1 store for all journaled mail, we journal everything that comes through the system, and 1 store for all mail in users mailboxes.  Both stores share within the single group.  Our finger print database is pretty big as a result.  We partition each store into an average of 30GBs per partition. All journaled email is immediately archived and user mail is archived after 2 years or if it is 3MB or larger after 30 days.  We have 550 active users in the system.  We are in the process of upgrading from 9.0.1 to EV 10.0.3 and I wanted to get some advice going forward about continuing to archive mail in our current config.  The config is based on a consultant’s recommendation.

One of my main concerns is that when we run a repair we have to run it on everything because it is all shared in a single group. It takes 4 to 5 days and if it crashes we have to start all over again. We currently do not age out any mail and probably will not for the foreseeable future.  Everything is just getting bigger.  My first thought is to start using Vault Store Groups based on defined periods of time such as 6 months or 1 year.  My boss likes to be stingy in the use of storage space, that is why we originally put everything in one storage group. I would welcome all input.   The goal is to utilize storage space effectively and be able to run repairs without them lasting forever.

Best Practice
Configuring
Enterprise Vault
Information Governance
Windows Server (2003-2008)
  • JesusWept3's avatar
    JesusWept3
    12 years ago
    Well the fingerprint database isn't going to get much smaller, you're just gonna end up with two big fingerprint databases And what space you might save you'd expand on more storage being taken up because you're not sis'ing between mailboxes and journals Plus EVSVR is slow regardless, I don't think it will be any better splitting them, I am confused about using VSG'e based on date ranges?

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  • JesusWept3's avatar
    JesusWept3
    Level 6
    12 years ago
    Well the fingerprint database isn't going to get much smaller, you're just gonna end up with two big fingerprint databases And what space you might save you'd expand on more storage being taken up because you're not sis'ing between mailboxes and journals Plus EVSVR is slow regardless, I don't think it will be any better splitting them, I am confused about using VSG'e based on date ranges?
  • MichelZ's avatar
    MichelZ
    Level 6
    12 years ago
    I agree with JesusWept3 here. Your current setup seems to be pretty much "standard", and is the recommended design. Also, you talk about "pretty big" and you have only 550 active users. What's "pretty big" in your case? 10 GB? 100 GB? (The fingerprinting database, I mean)
  • John_Huber's avatar
    John_Huber
    Level 4
    12 years ago

    My main concern is repair time.  I took 20 days to get through a repair because it kept crashing and we had to start over.  We do not have a dedicated SQL box and the slightest little hick up and the repair stopped.   My thinking was creating a vault storage group that is active for 6 months to a year then create a new active Vault Storage group and inactivate the old one.  Making each VSG smaller would make repairs more manageable.  Is this the wrong way to look at it?

     Am I not approaching the repair issue correctly?  My only experience in doing a repair was under the direction of Symantec support. Symantec had us put everything in backup mode and run the repair.  The problem is it took 20 days to complete 1 successful run. That was over a year ago. Is there a better way to run the repair?

  • TonySterling's avatar
    TonySterling
    Moderator
    12 years ago

    Something for you to consider, a mailbox archive will not span multiple Vault Store Groups so you could potentially end up with multiple archives for a mailbox which could prove confusing for end users.

    Running a repair should be a rarity, if you have to run repairs very often you have a bigger issue going on.  Repairs can also be broken up into smaller date ranges to allow less chance they will fail due to an issue you described.  Lastly, EVSVR does have much better performance in the new version of EV.