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Is Vault Site Alias Created Automatically In EV 10?

patriot3w
Level 5
Partner Accredited

Hi Guys,

Recently I opened a support case with Symantec tech support, and I was told our EV setup as "BAD" configration. The reason is the Vault Site Alias is same for all the three sites.

I remember when doing the configuration, there is no option to specify the Vault Site Alias, and I found out this tech doc:http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO32198 , it says the Vault Site Alias will be created automatically.

We are using 2+1 MSCS cluster in our 3 sites. Recently upgraded from V10 to V10 SP1.

Any idea?

Thank you.

 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

JesusWept3
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified

So here's what I have in my environment

EVSite (CNAME) -> EVServer1 (CNAME)
EVServer1 (CNAME) -> ev-archiver.enterprise.vault (192.168.100.4)
EVServer2 (CNAME) -> ev-indexer.enterprise.vault (192.168.100.5)
EVServer3 (CNAME) -> ev-discovery.enterprise.vault (192.168.100.6)

DNS Setup

Then when I went through the wizard, it asked me for the site name, i called it "EV Site", it then created the Alias off of that site name "evsite", I have the CNAME here pointing to EVServer1, which in turn points to ev-archiver

EVSite Properties

So above you can see my Site Name is "EV Site" and the site alias is "evsite"
So what this means is, the Site Alias is now appended to every single GUID that EV uses to uniquely idenfity an object, and nearly everything has a GUID with the site name appended.
Archive Tasks, Journal Tasks, Storage Services, Vault Stores, Vault Store Partitions, Indexes etc etc


EVSite GUID


So above you can see that the Archive ID is 1FE5F6D40413E74488517915DA896F5DB1110000evsite
The Site Alias is important because of things like the EV API and Move Archive and such use the site alias almost exclusively to tell you where its coming from, and where its going.

So for instance in a good set up you would have something like

EVSite1 -> EVServer1.myDomain1.com
EVServer1 -> machine1.myDomain1.com

EVSite2 -> EVServer1.myDomain2.com
EVServer1 -> machine1.myDomain2.com

So when you attempt to move an archive from evSite1 to evSite2, it uses the aliases, connects to the Directory service and works out which EV Server will look after what, where the storage server is, etc

BUT! if you had the same alias in use for all of them

EVSite -> EVServer1.myDomain1.com
EVSite -> EVServer1.myDomain2.com

How does it know which server to talk to if the aliases all point to the same place?

Also remember that you can have multiple sites sharing ONE EnterpriseVaultDirectory database.
So it uses the site alias appended at the end of every GUID to determine what belongs to what site

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-allen-turl-07370146

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11 REPLIES 11

JesusWept3
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified

well the site alias is set up when you very very first install and configure EV, from there on out, it will use that site alias and cannot be changed.

The only difference now is that they ask if you want to append the domain name to it

so before you could simply have a site named 'evsite', and in ev10 in the configuration wizard, it asks if you want it to be 'evsite.mydomain.com'

The issue is say you have three sites, and all are called 'evsite', there are certain things that actually have to call the site alias, or it just won't work

For instance if you want to do a move archive from site1 to site2, what will happen is, is that it will connect to the site alias looking to try and move the archive to it, but when it connects to evsite, it will just end up talking to itself and thus you won't be able to move from one site to the other.

there are also a few other random things that want to use site alias and not the actual server aliases and such, so in ev10 having it be evsite.myDomain1.com, evsite.myDomain2.com, evsite.myDomain3.com helps eliminate this.

Plus if you have three EV sites in one domain, you can only have one CNAME in existance at once, so where does EVSite point to? unless you are doing a round robin which wouldn't be any good either.

But basically, if thats the way its configured, you're stuck with it, nothing you can do, unless you want to export everything back to the mailboxes or PST files and start from scratch

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-allen-turl-07370146

patriot3w
Level 5
Partner Accredited

Thanks. So you mean there is a way to specify different Vault Site Alias for different site?

Refer to the EV installation guide:

It is good practice to create a DNS alias for each Enterprise Vault server computer. You are asked to enter the unqualified alias, for example "evserver1", when you run the Enterprise Vault Configuration wizard. When you configure Enterprise Vault on the first computer in a site, Enterprise Vault automatically creates a vault site alias using the DNS alias entered for that computer. The vault site alias is used by the Enterprise Vault software to refer to the Enterprise Vault site.

It said EV will automatically creates a vault site alias using the DNS alias entered for that computer.

Which is true??

JesusWept3
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified

OK so there are two types of Aliases that are in play (CNAME in DNS)
There is the Site Alias which is appended to every single EV GUID used that tells it which site the item belongs to, and there is a Server Alias used to make server migration and fail over easier

Typically you would have something like this

EVServer1 -> machine1.myDomain.com
EVServer2 -> machine2.myDomain.com
EVServer3 -> machine3.myDomain.com

let's say you wanted to retire machine3.myDomain.com and put a new server, machine4.myDomain.com in its place, well you'd simply change the DNS Alias (CNAME) of EVServer3 -> machine4.myDomain.com

all the links in peoples shortcuts in their mailboxes would point to http://evserver3/enterprisevault/......
but if it was the actual machine name, then you'd have to rebuild everyones shortcuts so it changed machine3.myDomain.com to machine4.myDomain.com etc etc

It also helps in a cluster or USL situation, because you may need to change machine3.myDomain.com to go to machine4.myDomain.com at any given time, but because all the services go to EVServer3, nothing will be interrupted, or need to be reconfigured or rebuilt.


The Site Alias typically is
EVSite -> EVServer1 (machine1.myDomain.com)

The site alias as mentioned before is appended to a whole host of GUID's, so each Exchange Server targeted, provisioning group, index location, index service, archive ID etc is a long GUID with the EVSite name attached to it.

When it says it creates it automatically, i think it means it just ends up setting it up in the database, EV never actually creates anything in the DNS servers or any CNAMEs etc, that all has to be done automatically.

Also the reason for appending the site name is so that no matter what, you the APIs and servers don't have to know which server an archive may belong to, it just needs to look at the archiveID, look at the site alias, connect to that alias which will then retrieve any information it needs to know

Also you can have multiple sites in a single directory database, so you may have task ID's or services that EV would distinguish which site they belonged to, based on the site alias appended to that guid

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-allen-turl-07370146

patriot3w
Level 5
Partner Accredited

Sorry I'm confused, what's vault site alias? why tech support said its bad configration? why all the 3 sites alias same? 

JesusWept3
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified
Refer to the above as to what a site alias is for As for why are they the same? Because someone when installing gave them the exact same site name and site alias
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-allen-turl-07370146

AndrewB
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

could it be that you have 3 EV sites that have the same name? like you said the site alias is not something you choose.

JesusWept3
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified

Vault Site Alias is now based off of the name, but if its an installation pre EV8, you did choose the alias yourself

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-allen-turl-07370146

JesusWept3
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified

So here's what I have in my environment

EVSite (CNAME) -> EVServer1 (CNAME)
EVServer1 (CNAME) -> ev-archiver.enterprise.vault (192.168.100.4)
EVServer2 (CNAME) -> ev-indexer.enterprise.vault (192.168.100.5)
EVServer3 (CNAME) -> ev-discovery.enterprise.vault (192.168.100.6)

DNS Setup

Then when I went through the wizard, it asked me for the site name, i called it "EV Site", it then created the Alias off of that site name "evsite", I have the CNAME here pointing to EVServer1, which in turn points to ev-archiver

EVSite Properties

So above you can see my Site Name is "EV Site" and the site alias is "evsite"
So what this means is, the Site Alias is now appended to every single GUID that EV uses to uniquely idenfity an object, and nearly everything has a GUID with the site name appended.
Archive Tasks, Journal Tasks, Storage Services, Vault Stores, Vault Store Partitions, Indexes etc etc


EVSite GUID


So above you can see that the Archive ID is 1FE5F6D40413E74488517915DA896F5DB1110000evsite
The Site Alias is important because of things like the EV API and Move Archive and such use the site alias almost exclusively to tell you where its coming from, and where its going.

So for instance in a good set up you would have something like

EVSite1 -> EVServer1.myDomain1.com
EVServer1 -> machine1.myDomain1.com

EVSite2 -> EVServer1.myDomain2.com
EVServer1 -> machine1.myDomain2.com

So when you attempt to move an archive from evSite1 to evSite2, it uses the aliases, connects to the Directory service and works out which EV Server will look after what, where the storage server is, etc

BUT! if you had the same alias in use for all of them

EVSite -> EVServer1.myDomain1.com
EVSite -> EVServer1.myDomain2.com

How does it know which server to talk to if the aliases all point to the same place?

Also remember that you can have multiple sites sharing ONE EnterpriseVaultDirectory database.
So it uses the site alias appended at the end of every GUID to determine what belongs to what site

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-allen-turl-07370146

patriot3w
Level 5
Partner Accredited

Hi, which version of EV are you using? I'm using EV 10, when I configure, no way to specify the site alias . And the site alias automatically took the first server alias.

 

AndrewB
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

are all your sites named the same?

patriot3w
Level 5
Partner Accredited

Hi, site names are different, but site alias yes. And just now technical support said there is an option to specify the site alias, but i don't have the option.