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Move Offline Vault DB's rather than recreating them?

erik_peters
Level 3

May 2009 we will start with the Enterprise Rollout of Vista facing a lot of problems regarding Enterprise Vault.

There are 2 groups we have to migrate:

  1. Users that are using EV offline vault but didn't have already their PST-migration (mailbox <1GB)
  2. Users that have a EV offline vault containing their migrated PST-files (+1GB > 6 GB OV-db's)

Like discussed in previous discussions the last group of users will have an incredible load on their outlook.exe process. Not online because offline vault has to build from scratch but also their PC is indexing itself and also the content in Outlook. So my question is clear: What is the best way to avoit load on endusers PC's? Is there a guideline for this. I can imagine the following:

  1. At fresh PC-install leave the system powerd-on for at least 2 hours to index the fresh OS. This can be done in your PC staging area and be (manually) checked using control panel "Indexing options" or (automatically???) using WMI-query "Index completed".
  2. Start outlook (cached mode) and wait for the OST-build. 
  3. Start indexing Outlook (automatic) and check indexing-status as stated in point 1.
  4. Enable Offline Vault and "download automatically". Users that have their PST-files migrated can be prepared for at least 5 hours (quick PC) to 2 days (slow PC) for the OV synchronisation. This is almost unacceptable.

So I see 2 quick (and dirty) solutions for this problem:

  1. The first three steps you have no control on. It will take some time to complete. Actually what is done in step 4 is already done on the "old" system so I'm thinking if there is a way to MOVE the OV-DB-files from the current system to the new (scratched) system after enabling OV on that new system and stopping Outook. Maybe the EV offline engine only has to check if the item is already being downloaded without downloading it again? Maybe there is a way to backup/restore OV-db's? 
  2. The most proper way from my point of view is partially introduced in the new version of EV. There BITS is controlling the networktraffic but the problem is at OS-level and not in the network. So lowering the "create offline vault" proces-priority when having "user-activity" on the system is the best way to have the OV build-up without havy impact for the end user.

I really hope someone from Symantec reads this and gives me some advice. If not I'll probably get hundreds of unsatisfied users at my desk :-).

Erik.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

GertjanA
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Hello,

There is a document somewhere on this site that describes how to move the offline vault from one machine to another. This document describes the process of replacing a machine having an offline vault for a user by another machine for the same user. I assume you could use that.

Unfortunately, I have not been able yet, to locate the document. Oh wait, here it is: http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/311665.htm

You might be able to use this, to prevent downloading the OV completely again. I assume that when you upgrade the client after moving the OV, it will be adjusted to the EV8 format (if necessary)

Good luck!

Gertjan

 

Regards. Gertjan

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6 REPLIES 6

Joseph_Rodgers
Level 6
Partner

Erik,

 

Should you upgrade to EV 8.0 the offline vault is replaced with Virtual Cache.  To my knowledge there is no way to convert an OV to a VC which means a new download of all cached content from EV.  As you noted BITS is used to be less intrusive to the end user.  In some early tests I did not notice any increase in cache build speed between OV and VC.  However BITS can be tweaked quite a bit.

 

-Joe

GertjanA
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

Hello,

There is a document somewhere on this site that describes how to move the offline vault from one machine to another. This document describes the process of replacing a machine having an offline vault for a user by another machine for the same user. I assume you could use that.

Unfortunately, I have not been able yet, to locate the document. Oh wait, here it is: http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/311665.htm

You might be able to use this, to prevent downloading the OV completely again. I assume that when you upgrade the client after moving the OV, it will be adjusted to the EV8 format (if necessary)

Good luck!

Gertjan

 

Regards. Gertjan

erik_peters
Level 3

GJ,

Many thanks for this tip. I've searched the support-DB for this but didn't find this document. I'll try it rigth away. If it doensn't work I'll come back to the forum ;-).

JR,

I plan no upgrade yet to EV8. I'm happy with 2007. Only the slow performance of the OV-build is a p... in the a.. but like I read this isn't solved in EV8 so why upgrading?

TonySterling
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Hey Erik,

Actually Vault Cache is faster than OV and doesn't impact the user during the initial build.  During the beta Vault Cache got rave reviews.

 

Regards,

 

erik_peters
Level 3

... offcourse you can expect this question...

Did you have these reviews available? With numbers I can play against project-office to elivate the upgrade to a higher priority.

Thanks in advance,

Tony Sterling

Bluesource

TonySterling
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I don't have access to those comments, but the performance guide states about 20 minutes for 10k items.

 

ftp://exftpp.symantec.com/pub/support/products/Exchange_Mailbox_Archiving_Unit/312319.pdf