How to automate the move of a user archive from one EV Store to another?

[chileno]

Hello everyone,

I am trying to find all options available to automate (as much as possible) the move of a user archive from one EV server/store to another. 

Scenario:

 ========

•  Three EV servers (2 EV servers recently implemented)
• One EV site (one physical location).
•  Enterprise Vault 2007 SP4
•  Windows 2003 Standard SP2
•  Mailbox Archiving and PST Archiving functionality implemented
•  1,000 Mailboxes - Exchange 2003 SP2.
•  300 GB EV Store.  Archives expected to grow to ~ 1.5-2.0 TB overall.  

 Background:

 ==========

 Recently completed the mailbox archive backlog for approximately 1,000 users with about 300GB archived thus far.  All of this was done with only one EV server and one store.  

 Challenge:

 ========

 PST Migration phase of project began and after benchmarking throughput with the initial EV server it was decided to implement two additional EV servers to increase the PST ingestion throughput thus complete the migration as soon as possible.  The goal is to balance the PST ingestion workload across all three EV servers.  This means that roughly 2/3 of the users would need to be moved to leverage the two new EV servers.  

Problem:

=======

When trying to disable and re-enable a user to point to another store (loss of SIS not an issue) we have hit a roadblock in that to accomplish the move of the archive, it takes four steps to do it:

Disable User

1. Export Archive data to PST file
2. Re-enable User (and point to *new” EV server/store)
3. Import PST file data into EV archive 

 I initially thought that we could move users easily but that is not so (EV lesson learned!).  The problem is that all users have been enabled to use the local EV store and you cannot point them to another EV server/store without having to follow the above mentioned steps (which are mostly manual and time consuming).  I need to get around the number of steps here as it involves close to 700 users.   

 Research:

 ========

 After finding a technote and receiving an EV whitepaper I had not seen before, I have confirmed that the “user archive move” cannot be done in one step.  The technote outlining what needs to be done is as follows:

 http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/273232  

The whitepaper I received is titled “Best Practice for moving mailboxes within an EV environment” by Glenn Martin.  This whitepaper has an excerpt that states the following:   

 "There is currently no feature within the VAC to move a user archive using a single “move” command (although this is expected in a future release) so a number of steps are required to move a user between vault stores."  

Questions:

 =========

1. Does anyone know if EV 8.0 has the “single move” feature mentioned above?
2. If EV 8.0 has the “single move” feature, can it be backported?  Is it just a script?
3. Has anyone found a way to automate this to accomplish the four steps with a script or utility?
4. I am thinking I could use the EVPM utility, but I am under the impression I can only leverage it for the PST import part, I am incorrect with this assumption?
5. I usually avoid relying on any complex EVPM scripts, are there any good samples of EVPM scripts that can help me here?
6. Does anyone know of any other options (other than a time machine) that I may have overlooked?  

Thanks in advance!

Francisco. 

[MichelZ · Accepted solution]

Hi Francisco

Answers:

=========

1. Does anyone know if EV 8.0 has the “single move” feature mentioned above? It hasn't
   
2. If EV 8.0 has the “single move” feature, can it be backported?  Is it just a script? No
   
3. Has anyone found a way to automate this to accomplish the four steps with a script or utility? Yes: http://www.evtools.net/10.html It was originally developed for Inter-Site migrations, but the Intra-Site migration feature is available within this month.
4. I am thinking I could use the EVPM utility, but I am under the impression I can only leverage it for the PST import part, I am incorrect with this assumption? Yes, import only!
5. I usually avoid relying on any complex EVPM scripts, are there any good samples of EVPM scripts that can help me here? I think there is an example in the "Utilities.pdf/chm" file, Section "Policy Manager"
   
6. Does anyone know of any other options (other than a time machine) that I may have overlooked?  

Hope this helps ;)

Cheers

Michel

Message Edited by MichelZ on 11-14-2008 07:33 AM

[chileno]

Thanks for the answer Michel! I will follow up on the information provided. 

[Archive_Andy]

Francisco,

We also have a product, called ArchiveAlign, that moves users' archives from one Vault Store to another.  Please take a look at it and let us know if you have any questions.

The pdf is at http://www.globanet.com/docs/ArchiveAlign_080529.pdf and our company site is http://www.globanet.com/ .

All the best