EV - Moving Users / Archives

[SYMAJ]

I have a site which was running EV9 for Exchange Mailbox Archiving (EX2010), and due to specific requirements wanted a new EV10 environment setting up and archives moving from the EV9 to the EV10 system.

I setup the EV10 environment, provisioned a few of the existing mailboxes, moved the archives and all is well.

Today I disabled ALL users archives on the EV9 server, provisioned ALL the the users on the EV10 server, kicked off an run now archive to enable and archive the first 200 items off each user.  I now have the following:

EV9 server with old archives, to which users still have shortcuts in their mailboxes.  All mailboxes are disabled for archiving.

EV10 server with new archives, enabled mailboxes and all users provisioned.

It is my understanding that the users should be able to access the items in the old archive (via the old shortcuts) and the items in the new archive (via the new shortcuts) at the same time.  The next step is to move the old archive which will move the data and update the shortcuts in the users mailbox.  At this point the old archive can be deleted.

Is this the case - i.e. can I access email in both the old and the new archive at the same time via the shortcuts in the mailbox ?

Thanks,

AJ.

[Jeff_Shotton · Accepted solution]

Hi AJ,

Yes you should be able to access items from both sites at the same time, assuming that on the new site you have set the relevant policy option, which is webappurl in the desktop policy.

However, I would recommend that you concentrate on getting the old shortcuts out of the system as fast as possible, since shortcuts from other systems can cause performance problems, and if the old system were to accidentally become active, you will end up with a mess.

Regards,

Jeff

[JesusWept3]

In addition to what jeff suggest, A lot of companies that i've seen do this simply deploy an outlook folder called something like "old archive" with a URL of http://oldEVServer/EnterpriseVault/ArchiveExplorerUI.asp and instruct the users to use AE to find their old items whilst the old archives are being moved and transitioned to the new site

[SYMAJ]

Thanks fo rthe input guys, just one question for you Jeff.

The WebAppUrl parameter, this goes in the new EV10 server in the OUTLOOK dropdown of the Advanced Tab of the Desktop policy - yes ?  And should I just have my old site entered here or both old and new sites ?  Also, am I correct in determining the format is as follows:

OLDSITEALIAS=http://oldserver_fqdn/enterprisevault;NEWSITEALIAS=http://newserver_fqdn/enterprisevault

Many thanks,

AJ

[Jeff_Shotton]

AJ,

Not quite. You need the square brackets. See the following technote:http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH43030

The formatting is VERY sensitive. Once this is working you will see entries in the client log at the bottom of the section where the settings are loaded:

for example.

13/09/2012 19:56:39.426[2316][H]:     USESELFINSTALLFUNCT = 1
13/09/2012 19:56:39.426[2316][H]:     VVREADINGPANECONTENT = 1
13/09/2012 19:56:39.426[2316][H]:     WEBAPPURL[VAULTSERVER1] = http://evserver2.remote.domain
13/09/2012 19:56:39.426[2316][H]:     WEBAPPURL[VAULTSERVER2] = http://evserver3.distant.domain

Further to what JesusWept said, you can set the archiveexplorerui.asp link on a folder using an EVPM script...but that is a whole other topic ;)

Regards,

Jeff

[Jeff_Shotton]

sorry - didn't completely answer the question there. Just to clarify, yes this goes in the EV10 site > desktop policy >advanced settings > outlook dropdown.

you only need to enter your old site there. The new one is taken care of by defaultwebappurl

Regards,

Jeff

[SYMAJ]

That's great - I'll try this in the morning and report back.

AJ.

[SYMAJ]

Jeff,

Worked a treat - many thanks.

AJ

[SYMAJ]

As I move this forward I have uncovered some interesting issues.

I am moving archives from the EV9 system to the EV10 system.  The reason we are starting with a 'fresh' EV10 system and not upgrading/migrating is that there were issues following a disk failure and subsequent restore which caused many issues with recall of items which were causing errors as EV stated that duplicates would exist - the system was basically in a mess !  Indexes were failing also due to this issue.

It was decided to setup a new system and move the archives, which as the move process progressed only items which were valid would be extracted/moved and stored/indexed at the target EV site.

This has worked in many cases, however the move is progressing as follows in a number of cases:

1. Archive is copied accross to the target site OK

2. Shortcut processing takes place and some items fail

3. Verification works OK

4. Archive remains open as the move is 'Completed with Errors'.

The errors are within the shortcut processing element of the process.

The results of these moves are as follows:

1. Some archives working fine and going to 'completed' status.  Source archives are marked closed.  All shortcuts are working fine.

2. Some archives are 'completed with errors', source archive stays open, shortcut body is only first 100 characters (as per policy) but when double clicked does not expand into original message.  EV banner at the top stating this item has been archived and to 'click here' to view original message.  However nothing happens when you click in the banner area.

3. In some messages when I hover the mouse over the attachment I see it is still referring to the old EV server, but in some messages the correct path (new EV server) is shown for the attachments.

4. In ALL cases when I view the archive from Archive Explorer or Search Archives ALL content and attachments are good.

This leads me to believe that the issue is purely with the shortcuts.  I have the policy set to delete orphaned shortcuts, so am assuming that when I run the shortccut processing on the new EV10 server that any 'old invalid' shortcuts in the mailboxes will be removed.

I have attached the MOVE ARVIVE output from one example mailbox - and this is the error I am getting with the majority of the moves which dont complete successfully.

What is going on here, and how can  best clean up the shortcuts in these affected mailboxes ?  I am happy that the new archives contents are valid (as Archive Explorer see's everything OK) - I just need to cleanup the shortcuts to remoove old ones and make sure new ones are there.

Any inout appreciated.

AJ 

[Jeff_Shotton]

The new EV server will not delete the shortcuts it thinks were from another system (since they might be there legitimately therefore they are outside the scope of processing)

The old server will be able to delete these old shortcuts, as they were from the 'old' site.....but now the mailboxes are being provisioned by the other server. Without running a test of this I couldn't honestly say 100% if just running the old server in shortcut processing mode will work without causing any other issues. I'm assuming your old server is still 'on'. Did you delete or disable the archiving tasks? Test using run now > shortcut processing with a single user, if possible...exchange backups first...

Regards,

Jeff