Change EV site alias

[CadenL]

Hi 

We have an EV environment that was first installed with EV7 and has been upgraded over the years to EV11. However, the EVsite alias is showing as evsite. myolddomain. net and the domain name has long since changed and I need to update the site alias to the new domain.

Everything still works and users can open archived items fine even though the old domain no longer exists and isn't referenced in DNS in any kind of zone. I think Veritas may have assisted in the migration at the time and perhaps made some changes - but I'm not sure.

Either way I did a quick query in SQL for evsite. myolddomain. net and it returned loads and loads of hits.

Is this anything to do with the shortcut content in the mailboxes that I'm seeing all these hits for and does a process exist for getting all these changed to evsite. mynewdomain.com - in fact I don't think the site alias is used anymore and so should it be updated to evserveralias. mydomain. net 

many thanks

[TonySterling]

I believe this TN is what you want: http://www.veritas.com/docs/000083917

Problem

When Enterprise Vault (EV) is configured on the first computer in a site, a Site Alias is created, using the DNS alias entered for that computer. Rather than use the physical name of the EV server, the vault site alias is used to refer to the Enterprise Vault site.

In the event that the physical server name is changed, the alias can be updated to point to the new EV server name, thus allowing archived items to be opened with minimal impact to the end users. In some cases, the alias itself may need to be changed. In this event, the previously archived items that reference the old site alias will no longer function.

Solution

1. Confirm the DNS alias and the original server name by executing the following query:
   
   NOTE: For SQL 2000, use SQL Query Analyzer. For SQL 2005 and higher, use SQL Management Studio.)
   
   USE EnterpriseVaultDirectory
   SELECT ComputerName as "Alias", ComputerNameAlternate as "Physical Name"
   FROM ComputerEntry
    
2. In DNS, modify the alias to the desired new value.
    
3. Back up the EnterpriseVaultDirectory database
    
4. Update the Alias in EV by executing the following query:
   
   Use EnterpriseVaultDirectory
   Update ComputerEntry
   SET ComputerName = '<New alias for EVSERVER>'
   WHERE ComputerName = '<Old alias for EVSERVER>'
    
5. Restart the EV Admin service.
    
6. Refer to TECH52747 in the related articles section for steps to “Update Service Locations”
    
7. Synchronize all mailboxes 
    

Note:  Enterprise Vault Shortcuts contain pointers to the Enterprise Vault alias. As such, shortcuts to previously archived items will not function until they have been update with the new alias as described in TECH47364 in the related articles section

[CadenL]

Thanks Tony

Yes - I think that will address the issues..... I think in my case the EVsite alias needs to be changed due to earlier releases of EV using a site alias rather than the EV server DNS alias needing to be changes, but I guess the process is the same.

The need to use the RestoreShortcutBody makes sense but I have a couple of questions on how best to do this to minimse user impact. I've posted another question for the same EV site which now has a relevence to this. https://www.veritas.com/community/forums/using-restoreshortcutbody-ev-http-https-change

In the post I've linked above, I've detailed by questions around using restoreshortcutbody as I also need to change from http to https for the same ev site (I'm hoping I can do both changes simaultaneously).

Also the technote https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.TECH47364 makes a reference to doing the https change and mentions TECH128657 but I can't find that one - would it have been renamed since the Veritas split?

thanks

[CadenL]

Hi

After I update the ev site alias I can see that I then need to update the shortcur body with the new information - is there a workaround that will allow me to update the shortcuts but still allow the users whose shortcuts have yet to be updated to still open old emails?

I want to take the recommended approach of updating shortcut bodies and batches but can't really have users not being able to open archived items for extended periods.

thanks 

[CadenL]

Hi Tony

Can you confirm that you're original post is actually relevent to my requirement as there may need to be a bit more clarification from my part.

The EV server itself has an alias of evserver01.<NewDomain.com>    (only the domainname has been substituted)

The evsite name ( as shown in the EVsite properties) is evsite.<OldDomain.com>  (only the domainname has been substituted)

I now want to update the EV site alias so it so it uses the same name as the evserver alias eg - they will both be evserver01.<NewDomain.com>

The technote you described appears to be for changing the EV server alias name from which the evsite name is derived. However, deriving the evsite from the ev server alias was not the way it worked when this EV environment was first installed and so they are currently different - I'm looking to get them to the same name as is default thesedays

The process for getting them to be the same may be exactly what your describing but I just wanted to clarify the process will do what I need before I roll it out.

thanks

[AndrewB]

what do you get when you run the provided query? if you get what you're expecting based on what you're looking to change then you should be fine to move forward with the technote as described. you can always reverse the change if you run into an issue.

USE EnterpriseVaultDirectory
SELECT ComputerName as "Alias", ComputerNameAlternate as "Physical Name"
FROM ComputerEntry
 

[CadenL]

Hi Andrew

So the query returns the DNS alias of the EV server eg EVserver01.Newdomain.com, along with the physical name of the EV server.

This is what I want to change the 'evsite' name to. The evsite name is what I see under the 'vault site alias' when I look at the evsite properties.

It might help if I explain the problem I see. When I add a second EV server to the ev site I get an error when I run through the EV configuration wizard. The moment I point the new EV server to the existing EV site by populating the wizard with the name of the EV directory server it errors saying it can't find the evsite information. This seems to be because it's looking for the 'vault site alias' (evsite.olddomain.com) - which has no DNS zone as the whole 'olddomain.com' no long exists and so it cannot resolve it to the ip address of the EV directory server. If I create a host file on the second EV server that points evsite.olddomain.com to the ip address of the ev directory server (evserver01.newdomain.com) so it can resolve the evsite name to the ev directiry server, then it continues through the wizard all ok.

So I want to somehow change the evsite vault alias name to something that can still be resolved through DNS.

There is a post here from Alex (with some input from you too) where he talks about the vault site alias name in some detail but doesn't say how to update it :o(

https://www.veritas.com/community/forums/vault-site-alias-created-automatically-ev-10

thanks

[CadenL · Accepted solution]

I spoke with Symantec support and they confirmed it's not possible to change the vault site alias name :o(