Planning on Retention Expiry and Bulk Archive deletions

[AKL]

Hello

This is more of a pre-discussion that issue itself but I am trying to design a solution which involves following points:

1. Identify and delete orphaned Archives.

2. Create an expiry retention policy which deletes shortcuts from default folder & sub-folders after x months.

3. Push the Policy to all mailboxes.

So far I have made below progress on these action items.

1. Idenitified Orphaned archives and their LegacyMailboxDN values & Archive names.

However - I am wondering if there is a way to perform bulk deletions of these archives rather doing on one-off basis - like an EVPM or SQL script that marks these accounts for deletions? These archives do not have the AD account or mailboxes so we won't be able to use Provisioning group as a parameter to my knowledge.

2. Below is EVPM script to complete same:

[Directory]

directorycomputername = myserver

sitename = mySite

[Filter]

name = X Months Deletions

DeleteShortcut = true

DeleteOriginal = true

unreadMAIL = true

UseInactivityPeriod = true

InactivityUnits = months

InactivityPeriod = 6

[Mailbox]

distinguishedname = ALL

[Folder]

name = Inbox

filtername = InboxFilter

retentioncategory = X Months Deletions

[Folder]

name = Sent Items

filtername = SentItemsFilter

retentioncategory = X Months Deletions

[Folder]

name = Deleted Items

filtername = DeletedItemsFilter

retentioncategory = X Months Deletions

If you guys can look and confirm this looks good? I will be testing this with a Provisioning group of test users first. Also curious to know - currently we have Process expiry on site level set to "Never" - We will have to turn on same right and define schedule when it should run? (any changes that we will need to make in this direction?)

Any other information you can point to that could be helpful in this direction will be really appreciated.

References:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH65027

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/help-how-setup-evpm-script-apply-different-mailbox-po...

Thanks in Advance

Ajay

[LCT]

Be careful when you turn on storage expiry and deletion of archives. Don't delete the orphaned archives and turn on storage expiry all in one go as the processes will kill your SQL server and take your EV production down. I have seen that done once by a customer. You need to schedule them and delete a small bulk at a time and probably best schedule the deletion over the weekend or out of hours. Also you need to ramp up your SQL server (CPU and RAM to the max) in order to cope with the extra work loads. This process will take a long time as EV will need to look up for every individual items on storage and delete them and also deleting SIS part and saveset records in SQL.

As for the prevention of deletions make sure that the site settings and retention category settings are set to allow deletion (you need to set the policy not to allow users to delete from thei vault manually). Make sure that your storage hardware retention alllow you to delete data from it (i.e. if you are using EMC Centera check with EMC what mode you are using.

Last but not least make sure that you absolute sure that you REALLY want to delete from vault, recovering them are not easily done.

Hope that helps.

[AKL]

Thanks CTEV for highlighting Pitfalls of this plan. Will be careful on those points. The expiry will be enabled only after deletions though.

Still looking for a scripted solution - for we can provide an excel sheet as input and it will delete those archves based on ArchiveName or LegacyMailboxDN values.

[AndrewB · Accepted solution]

ajay, theoretically, there's a bit in sql which you can flip that essentially marks the archive for deletion. not sure that i want to post it here - it might be like giving everyone a rope to hang themselves with. it can be very dangerous. if you want to pm me i'll share the script with you and you can modify it to work with your input list as you see fit.

[LCT]

usually it's when people marked the archive to delete "by mistake" via the console and then try to use the script to revert the status of the archive to normal (if they are quick enough before it gets deleted) :)

[AKL]

Thanks for the SQL query Andrew.

I have changed the EVPM script for retention category to look like below - because this one will work over top of Main retention category that archives all emails older than 30 days.

So basically, there is default retention category of "Forever" that will be applied on whole mailbox BUT Inbox, sent items and deleted items folder will be governed by X Month deletion policy which will delete archived items from Storage device (centera/NTFS) after X months

[Directory]

directorycomputername = myserver

sitename = mySite

[Filter]

name = X Months Deletions

CreateShortcut = true

DeleteOriginal = true

unreadMAIL = true

UseInactivityPeriod = true

InactivityUnits = days

InactivityPeriod = 30

[Mailbox]

distinguishedname = ALL

[Folder]

name = Inbox

filtername = InboxFilter

retentioncategory = X Months Deletions

[Folder]

name = Sent Items

filtername = SentItemsFilter

retentioncategory = X Months Deletions

[Folder]

name = Deleted Items

filtername = DeletedItemsFilter

retentioncategory = X Months Deletions

and the X Months deletions will have retention period of 6 Months. Does above sounds good or it needs any changes?

Also - I was wondering if above will take care of sub folders as well under Inbox/Sent items/Dleeted items folder OR we will need to create another switch for same....?

[JesusWept3]

the above EVPM script would actually have to be changed
In the [folder] section, the filtername has to reflect the name of whatever you put in the [filter] section

So for instance take the following

[Directory]

directorycomputername = myserver

sitename = mySite

[Filter]

name = X Months Deletions

CreateShortcut = true

DeleteOriginal = true

unreadMAIL = true

UseInactivityPeriod = true

InactivityUnits = days

InactivityPeriod = 30

[Mailbox]

distinguishedname = ALL

[Folder]

name = Inbox

filtername = InboxFilter

retentioncategory = X Months Deletions

You would have to change it to this
 

[Directory]

directorycomputername = myserver

sitename = mySite

[Filter]

name = X Months Deletions

CreateShortcut = true

DeleteOriginal = true

unreadMAIL = true

UseInactivityPeriod = true

InactivityUnits = days

InactivityPeriod = 30

[Mailbox]

distinguishedname = ALL

[Folder]

name = Inbox

filtername = X Months Deletions

retentioncategory = X Months Deletions

And remember for the Retention Category Name you will have to specify a retention category that exists in the Vault Admin Console, and use that name there.

So based on the example above, you would need to have a retention category named "X Months Deletions"

Also remember that if you have a Centera that is in governance/compliance mode, you have to be careful with how this is set up, because lets say you have a retention set to "12 months" and then you change that retention to "3 months", you will get errors that state that the item could not be deleted because of the retention period has not expired.

You would have to wait a further 9 months for those items to be eligible for deletion.
And if you are retroactively changing the retention for those items placed on hold for Forever, and changing it to be 6 months, those items stored with the Forever retention on the Centera will never delete.

[AKL]

Thanks Jesus - Yes that makes sense.

I have made sure that centera is in Basic mode - so it will allow the deletions.

Also - Just wanted to re-confirm - above EVPM will cover sub-folders under Inbox/Sent items... as well right?

[AKL]

Thanks for the response guys !!

All were really helpful and pointed in right direction.