Multiple EV sites pointing to same exchange server and moving users between sites

[Majid]

 Hi guys,

Need to verify an EV design for a company

Current Environment :

Company currently has EV 7.5 running in a clustered environment and is archiving 394 mailboxes. The archiving process has been stopped since the past 1 and a half years so no new emails have been archived since that time and the archive enabled users only utilize EV to retrieve the older archived emails. There are 2 vault store partitions 1 TB each. Collections was enabled on one of the vault store partitions and so there are cab files in that partition.

 Proposed Solution :

Company has now bought 3000 EV licenses for mailbox archiving and wants to implement a fresh & clean EV solution. So now the idea here is to install a new EV 10 server in a new EV site. This EV server will also archive from the same target exchange server as the EV 7.5 server. Users which are not enabled  for archiving on the EV 7.5 server will be enabled  gradually on this server. So at this point of time there will be two EV setups working in parallel however as mentioned earlier archiving process has been stopped on the EV 7.5 server. EV 7.5 server will then be upgraded to EV 8.0 SP4. Once upgraded the ‘Move Archive’ feature will be utilized to move the archives between the two EV servers in the two sites. The steps will be;

1. Disable the user for archiving on the EV 8.0 server.
2. Add the user in provisioning group on the new EV server and then enable his mailbox for archiving.
3. Use the Move archive wizard to move the user archive on the new EV server.

This is possible because as per EV whitepaper http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH129236&actp=search&viewlocale=en_... ( pg 23 ), it is mentioned that an Archive move from an archive associated with a mailbox that is disabled for archiving  to an archive associated with a mailbox enabled for archiving is allowed and also it will display a mailbox GUID match if the mailbox is the same.

Once the move is done and it is successful user archive can be deleted from the old EV server.

After moving all archives decomission the old EV server.

Need advice from you guys, if this will work or anything else is recommended

Thanks,

Majid.

[TonySterling]

That may not be the best solution.  You will have issues with mailboxes being synchronized the the EV servers even though they are not enabled for archiving.  What ever archive task synchronizes last will update them.

Why not just upgrade the current site and move to new hardware?  Even without the issue with the synchronization you have two TB of data for 394 mailboxes, personally, I would not want to have move that amount of data with Move Archive.

Can you explain the reason for wanting to do a new install instead of upgrading?

Also, did you see this in the whitepaper? "Move Archive is designed to address a number of scenarios that would require customers to move archives between Vault Stores or sites but it is not necessarily the right tool to use when large numbers of archives are involved or entire Vault Stores need to be moved between servers."

[Majid]

Customer wasnts to have a clean install for EV, says that the current EV infrastructure might have issues and he does not trust it, also he is a little bit dodgy about upgrades.

All the 394 archives will not be moved as 50% of those archives are for ex-employees.

The archive task will be disabled on the old EV server, so it will not synchronize the malboxes. On the new EV server won't the archive task sync only those mailboxes which have been enabled for archiving on the new server?

Appreciate the support,

Majid.

[Majid]

Tony your feedback please..

Thanks,

Majid.

[FreKac2]

I would say that as long as you don't try to use both EV servers against the same Exchange server then it's just a question on how you're going to move the old archives.

But if you want to use them in parallel, meaning archiving from one server and then archiving from the other then I would say that you're probably going to end up in "trouble" sooner or later.

E.g. if you by accident enable a user on the new server that is part of the old, the hidden message will be overwritten, so now the "enabled" user will try to contact the new evserver when you double click on a shortcut or click on search.

But until you move the archive content it's the wrong ev server.

There is also a question on what support will say if you end up having issues, I doubt they will say that it's supported.

Is it 2TB of real data or is it just the volumes that are 2TB in total ?

Meaning, maybe it's just easier to push back the content to Exchange and then re-archive it in the new environment.

[Denis_Kattithar]

Well,, This doesnt seem a feasible solution. I would like to understand whether there is any specific reason, for installing a new EV server in another site archiving a remote Exchange server?

[Majid]

Denis, the EV server will be in another EV site, not in another physical site. Like I mentioned customer does not trust the existing setup and wants to have a new and clean install.

@FreKac , archiving task will be stopped from the old EV server and it will just be used for retrieving archived emails. Will be using the move archive feature to move the archives between the EV servers in two different EV sites. 2 TB of real data involved, but 50 % of the archives will be discarded as they are not required.

I tested the design and it works fine, just need to take care of a few things such as creating new service accounts including the system mailbox, if you will use the same SQL server, then you need to create a new instance, make sure the archiving task on the old server is stopped and the schedule for archiving is set to never.

Provisioning, Archiving and Synchronizing from the new EV server works fine without errors. Procedure for moving the mailboxes would be;

1. Disable archiving for the user mailbox on the old EV server.
2. Provision the user and enable the user for archiving on the new EV server.
3. Start the move archive task to move the archive between the EV servers.
4. Once completed successfully , synchronize the mailbox on the new EV server.

Make sure to read and understand the steps involved in the move archive task.

Will be starting my project from Thursday, will post the results in a weeks time.

Any more advices / comments appreciated. Thanks for the support guys.

Majid.

[Denis_Kattithar]

Majid, The approach described above is technically feasible for migrating to a new EV server. However, an upgrade may be a better option?

All the best!!

Denis

[Bruce_Cranksh1]

Hi Majid

I was recently involved in similar work at a customer

1. 2 x separate EV sites with separate Directory Databases and 2 separate Exchange Servers and  AD forests
2. I disabled user from archiving  in old EV site
3. Enabled user in new EV site
4. Used Move Archive to move the EV archives between EV sites
5. This updated Shortcuts

There were some EV archives that failed to migrate with Move Archive ,all I did was

1. Enable user mailbox for archiving in new EV site
2. Configured the Web Application URL setting in the Exchange Desktop  Policy so  the old EV Site was accessible when a user tried to open an old Shortcut
3. I needed to do this as in  these mailboxes there were 2 types of Shortcuts ,the news ones that worked and older ones that pointed at the old EV site

[Majid]

Thanks for the information Bruce. Have not started the moving of archives as of yet but will start hopefully by tomorrow, will post my results here.

[Majid]

Hi Guys,

I upgraded the old EV server from version 7.5 to 8.0 SP4 and when i tried to use the move archive feature to move archives from EV 8.0 SP4 site to EV 10 site, it gave me error that ' Cannot move archives. The destination server is running a later version of EV and only accepts archives from a system running EV 9.0.1 or later'. Is there a hotfix or something which i need to apply? Appreciate your help.

regards,

Majid.

[TonySterling]

See my comment to your post here: https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/move-archive-feature-does-not-work-between-ev-80-sp4-and-ev-10#comment-6208111

You will need to upgrade to EV 9, at which point you could just use the EV Server migration tool and move to a new EV server instead of messing around with moving all the archives.  Article URL http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO42430

[Majid · Accepted solution]

Move Archive does not work between version 8 and version 10, works only between version 8 SP4 and version 9 and between version 9 SP1 and version 10. Confirmed from Symantec backline team. Anyways the design worked where I was targeting the same exchange server from two different EV servers in two different sites and it works without any issues. Now to just get around this moving archives thing. As suggested earlier by Tony and Bruce moving archives using Move Archive for a large number of mailboxes is not feasible with Move Archive. I am looking into Archive shuttle or transvault as a third party solution for moving archives. Thanks for the help guys.

Majid.