Enterprise Vault decommisioning

[JoeyD]

How can I decommision our Enterprise Vault Server ver. 10 running in Windows Server 2008 R2?

[GertjanA]

Hi Joey,

Can you be a bit more clear? What do you want to achieve? Do you have journal archiving and mailbox archiving? Do you need to restore the archives back to the mailbox? Do you 'simply' need to remove everything? Do you want to migrate to a newer release?

The simple answer to your question would be 'shut down, delete SQL databases and storage', but I assume you don't intend on doing that :)

[JoeyD]

Hi GertjanA,

Thanks for replying. I have already restored the archived emails to respective mailboxes. It was not used for journal archiving.

Yes, I want to shut it down, delete the database from our SQL Server 2008 R2 as we don't want to use its email archiving function anymore.

[CConsult]

Hi,

I would first check if everything went good.

1. So run a script over mailboxes that checks for ipm.note.enterprisevault.shortcut.* files
2. backup EV server, in case anything goes wrong
3. Check MSMQ for queued items
4. remove tasks, services and targets
5. rightclick on EVserver >>delete
6. check databases, delete if neccessary
7. decomission server if not needed for anything else

this is how I would do it

[GertjanA]

Hi Joey

You can use an Exchange Powershell query to remove EV items from mailboxes:

https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/office/Removing-Messages-by-e0f21615

Besides removing the shortcuts (which you might already have done), you can also remove the 'hidden message'. If you still have a connection between EV and Exchange, you might want to disable the users in EV, which removes the buttons in Outlook. I'm not sure about the messageclass of the hidden message, I believe it is ipm.note.enterprisevault.settings

When done, and you're happy with the result, and you are 110% sure you will not have to access the old EV data in the future, you can:

Shutdown the EV server. Detach, then delete the databases. format the index and storage disks.Then remove the ev server. If you somehow need to keep the info for a while, you best just shutdown the ev server, leave databases and storage intact. Whenever you need access, you power up the EV server, and do whatever you need to do.

I would disable the users, make sure EV shortcuts are removed from mailboxes, and then shutdown the EV server (stop and disable the EV services). Then wait a week, just in case someone complains about not being able to access something, then detach the databases from SQL, format storage for indexes and data, and remove the ev server. If someone requires acess in that week, start the server, then manually start the ev services.

Obviously, if your data is on a storage device which has a specific retention function (Netapp snaplock, or Centera etc), then removing the data could be an issue.

Regards,

GJ

[CConsult]

ipm.note.enterprisevault.settings is right for hidden message Gertjan

[JoeyD]

Thanks GJ,

I haven't removed the "shortcuts" but I uninstalled the EV client on each user's computer after restoring their archived emails.

What are those shortcuts and do I have to do something also in our local AD before or after permanently shutting down the EV server?

[GertjanA]

Hello Joey,

Shortcuts are also referred to as 'stubs'. In general, when an item is archived, the original item is converted to a shortcut. In the Mailbox policy, you can define how the shortcut looks like (like 'show the first 1000 characters of the body and include a link to archived attachments'. If you perform a search in a users mailbox for items with messageclass = ipm.note.enterprisevault.shortcut, you'll probably find a few (or many). It might also be the policy dictates to not create shortcuts, and also there is a setting to remove shortcuts if they are older than a defined period. Usually I see shortcuts older than 1 year being removed from mailboxes. If you cannot find one, in a mailbox which had the archive restored, look for a restored item with something unique in the subject. If you have shortcuts, you'll find 2 items. The shortcut, and the original restored one. It might also be that during the restore of the archive you selected 'remove shortcut when restored'.

There is nothing to be done in AD when removing EV. If you have DNS aliasses for EV, you might want to delete those. Obviously, you also have a service account, and some 'system mailboxes'. If you look at the installing and configuring guide, you'll see what has been done in both Exchange and SQL to grant permissions for the respective accounts, you might want to remove that too.

I hope this clarifies.

Regards, GJ

[JoeyD]

Hi GJ,

Many thanks for taking the time to provide the information to decomissioning our EV server.

Regards,

JoeyD