Can I stop archiving at an exact date?

[ANDREY_FYODOROV]

Hi all.  This may sound unusual, but...

Is there a way to set up archiving policies in such a way that nothing gest archived after a specific date?

We currently archive all items older than 90 days. But it doesn't mean that every EV server in our environment is on time... there are some that may be lagging behind a few days.  Plus there is shortcut processing that depends on backup schedules.  So wd can't just stop the archiving tasks on day X and expect everyone's messages to be fully archived and shortcutted as of (X - 90) days.

[Rob_Wilcox1]

Seriously, you have servers which are 'several days' time drifted?  I think you need to sort that out, and worry about the other problems later ;)

Secondly.. once you've got stuff in vaguely in-synch (I'm sure active directory won't like being large differences apart from 'true time')... then just stop archiving at the end of one evening, then, if you want to you can run shortcut processing manually the day after (or the day after that) for all mailboxes.

Remember.. archiving of mail items takes place server side, based on server time, and access Exchange servers.

I can't believe an environment will be in good working order if your Exchange servers are all at mismatched times :(

[ANDREY_FYODOROV]

I am not talking about mismatched times on servers (I *knew* someone would fall for this assumption)

I am talking about archived items. Due to high workloads some EV servers are lagging a little bit behind, for example today is Feb 11th, so we should be seeing Nov 11th items being archived.  But there is a little lag and the EV server only got to archive items up to Nov 5th.

[Rob_Wilcox1]

Why not do a loooong archiving run, on a Saturday or Sunday. Nothing can be behind then, right?

[ANDREY_FYODOROV]

But still, how do I get the archiving task running the following few days, to catch up with pending items processing, yet make sure that nothing new gets archived anymore?

[Rob_Wilcox1]

Don't think you can.

best bet is to analyse a head of time whether you are getting through all items in all mailboxes, the make your last day something like a weekend day.. When you have the biggest window.

following day you can do shortcut processing.

[GabeV]

Hello Andrey,

If you want to modify the tasks schedule without using the console (i.e. updating the SQL server manually), I don't think is possible. If you want to start, stop or pause the EV tasks at a specific time (same options from the EV Admin console), you can use the evservice.exe application from the Enterprise Vault installation directory:

About EVservice
http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO57899

However, if you want to do, for instace, a Run Now with just Shortcut Processing using a script, you might want to post an idea or an enhacement request to design a powershell command where you can easily perform these kind of tasks:

How to Submit a Suggestion or Idea for Symantec Products.
http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO38237

I hope this helps.

[ANDREY_FYODOROV]

I am thinking about something else...
 

A SQL script that runs on schedule and modifies the policy settings.

On Day X, it will modify all the relevant policies to use the 91 day age.

On Day Y, it will modify all the relevant policies to use the 92 day age

On Day Z, it will modify all the relevant policies to use the 93 day age

We can keep it running like this for a while to make sure that we have caught up with all the archiving and never archive anything newer than (Day X - 90days)

[TonySterling]

Why would you want to modify the policy? Is the plan to stop archiving all together? 

You wouldn't need to change in SQL all you would need to do is change the policy.  If you do change the policy to 91, 92, 93, etc... you will end up with a backlog once you switch back to 90 days.

It would be better to look at improving performance or determining exactly why you have the back log to begin with.

What does the archive rate look like for the affected servers?

[ANDREY_FYODOROV]

Hi Tony, yes, the plan is to stop archiving as of a specific date and do something else altogether instead of archiving.

As for the reasons for the lag... there are a number, some of them being that we have certain locations with Exchange, but without a local EV server - we have EV servers archiving those Exchange servers across the WAN, and there is no way to speed it up.

[TonySterling · Accepted solution]

Okay, knowing the plan is to stop archiving explains it a bit.  What you could do is for the servers that are caught up is to put their tasks into Report mode so they won't actually archive anything.  Then just change the archive policy by incrementing the day to allow it to get to that point.  I would also extend the schedule for those servers as much as possible allow it to catch up. 

It is a bit messy but you don't have too many options I'm afraid.

[ANDREY_FYODOROV]

Thanks. The Report mode did cross my mind too. but this is what my brain countered with - "what if there are archive pending items that haven't been secured yet by a backup? - they will go back to Not Archived".

I am actually pretty close to doing the SQL job based on this little snippet I just wrote. I can schedule it to run every day and update the age setting on the policies. Starting on April 1, it will start ticking and incrementing the age of the policies by 1. This wil make sure that everything before Jan 1 still get archived, but nothing after Jan 1 will.

Declare @CurrDate DATE

Declare @Jan1 DATE

Declare @PolicyAge Int

Declare @Difference Int

Set @CurrDate = CAST(GETDATE() As date )

Set @Jan1 = CAST('01-Jan-2014' As Date )

SET @Difference = DATEDIFF(Day,@Jan1,@CurrDate)

SELECT @Difference

If @CurrDate > CAST('01-Apr-2014' As Date )

Set @PolicyAge = @Difference

Else

Set @PolicyAge = 90

SELECT @PolicyAge