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slides or graphics to explain safety copies

Merv
Level 6
Partner

Hi, 

Does anyone have some diagrams or simple slides to explain enabling safety copies. I have put down some main points and flow below but seems overly complicated to explain in just words.

Overview:

The safety copy option if enabled basically allows  all archived items to remain present within the target (Exchange.) until a good backup of the vault store partitions have been completed. These copies provide a safety net in the event of a hardware failure of the Vault Store partition(s). EV 11/12 also allows safety copies to me kept on EV's storage queue folder - typically a seperate disk.

 Note it  requires careful planning and some staging storage space  is required on EV/Exchange space/backup monitoring and integration with NBU/Vmware policy to get this to work properly . In the event that a good backup is not done or that EV is unaware that the backup is done the Exchange DB / EV temp storage may blow up (.especially if have enabled safety copies for journaling vault store.)  Note the best practice is to enable it if after proper planning, extra storage buffer is catered during backup failures and backup mode and EV backup mode script testing has been done.

Detailed flow of what happens  in each of the 3 options/scenarios :-

Scenario 1 : If you chose option 1 "immediately delete" ( i.e. no safety copy and only 1 copy remains - current setting)

Normal email archiving flow (current) :- 

  1. EV task runs and archives item
  2. Item is deleted from exchange at the same time( right after archiving)
  3.  A EV shortcut is created in place of the original email and user clicks on shortcut and which re-directs to the actual archive item in EV(EV partition)

Scenario 2 : If you chose option 2 " Yes, in original location" ( i.e. 2 copies maintained with email remaining in exchange until a backup on EV is completed successfully )

Safety copy enabled archiving flow :- 

  1. EV task runs and archives item
  2. Item is NOT deleted from exchange
  3. A EV pending item shortcut is created
  4. EV runs regular checks against all DVS items in the partition (recorded in DB) to check if a backup has occurred on the EV partitions
  5. If the archive bit** has been unchecked it will mean the file has been backed up (The archive bit is a file attribute that is set whenever a file is modified. For backups that use archive bits, this bit is turned off after the backup completes, indicating to the system that the file has been backed up.)
  6. EV will run a post processing job against the previously archived mailboxes and delete the archived item and change the shortcut items from pending to archived
  7. Note if no backup is detected the items remain in exchange

**There is a mechanism to create a create trigger file after each backup job on a partition has run to mark an entire partition as backed up. This is useful for vm snapshot type backups which do not change the archive bit

Scenario 3 : Option 3(new) "Yes, in the storage queue"  i.e. 2 copies maintained with email in in Vault Store partition and another kept in Storage Queue folder till a backup is performed on EV. *EV 11/12 partially replaces MSMQ functionality withnew Storage queue feature

Safety copy enabled archiving flow( safety copy kept on the Storage queue) :- , the mailbox archiving process is as follows:-

  1. An item is marked as archive pending.
  2. The item is added to .EVSQ file in the Storage queue location.
  3. Storage takes the item from the .EVSQ file and adds it to the appropriate archive.
  4. Enterprise Vault changes the archive pending item in the mailbox to a NORMAL shortcut.
  5. Enterprise Vault scans to make sure that each SIS part and DVS file have been secured.
  6. When all the archived versions of all the items in the .EVSQ file are secured, Enterprise Vault deletes the .EVSQ file.

Enterprise Vault creates empty .EVSQ files and then populates them as required.  The files are deleted when they are not longer needed.

Thanks 

2 REPLIES 2

GertjanA
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

Hello,

I am not sure this has what you look for, but it is a start:

Diagrams

Regards, GJ

 

Regards. Gertjan

Mouse
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

There are many specialized storages where this process is being taken care of, like Dell EMC ECS (and its predecessor Centera), Hitachi HCP and others so for a comprehensive explanation those need to be factored in as well.