Adding a second EV site pros and cons regarding shared directory database

[shafty]

Hi guys,

At the moment I have configured a single site with one EV server which is archiving 600 mailboxes on our local exchange instance. I am about to deploy an archiving solution for our remote office (500 users) which have their own local instance of exchange. Due to the WAN bandwidth (20mb) I will be deploying an EV server, SQL database server in the remote office. The SQL server will host the Vault store databases.

Is it feasible to use the existing EnterpriseVault Directory in our central office over the 20mb WAN pipe or will I need to create and configure an new EV directory db in the remote office? Bottom line I dont want to degrad user experience from having the EV directory on another site but like the idea off having the 2 site under the one VAC for managment.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be most welcome.

Thanks

[JesusWept3 · Accepted solution]

To be honest I would suggest against the second EV site nd would just have a SQL server and EV server in the remote site that houses the vault store and fingerprint databases in the remote site and keep the vault stores and vault store groups separate That way you can keep a single EV directory and single site which will be easier to manage overall A very very similar question was asked here a couple of days ago and that was the common consensus

[shafty]

Thanks for your input . Is there much chatter between the EV directory DB on central site and EV server on the remote site?

Thanks Paul.

[WiTSend]

There will be come traffic during mailbox sync and provisioning in addition to sql updates during archiving.  However, if the "pain point" is user experience then by using vault cache/Virtual Vault, you will greatly enhance the user experience.  A 20mb pipe with decent latency should be sufficient to support the SQL traffic involved.

[MichelZ]

Communicating with SQL

A rule of thumb is that 160 kilobits of total data is transferred between the SQL Server and the Enterprise Vault server for every item archived. If the Directory database is on a different server, 40 kilobits of this is transferred to the Directory database. More data is transferred to and from the Directory database when empty or sparsely populated mailboxes are archived or when mailboxes have many folders.

You can find this in the Performance Guide:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=DOC2817

I second JesusWept2 by voting against creating an additional site, but just having both Sites in one Directory, and having the VS DB on another SQL.

Cheers
Michel