unable to disable archiving

[skrish]

Team,

Can someone please help me to solve this issue:

We have around 1,200 disabled user accounts, as part of archival project , we have performed below tasks.

1. Moved all disabled users to dedicated exchange server
2. All mailbox content has been exported as PST
3. Disabled user Account and mailbox hidden from GAL
4. User has been added to EV Provisioning group

Archive is available for all disabled users on EV.

While running archiving task for dedicated exchange server and based on the report  , most of the mailboxes not archived because mailbox is hidden or AD Account is disabled.

Now we are in the process of performing below tasks.

5. Disable Archiving for all Mailboxes those who are on dedicated exchange server ( While trying to disable Mailbox for archiving it is showing only 3-4 mailboxes out of 1200 , even existing mailboxes are not listed to enable /disable mailbox for archiving) , do I need to enable both registry key ? so that the mailboxes are listed to disable ? .my issue is in case if I enable registry key all 1200+ mailboxes will start archive and it may create load on dedicated exchange server for disabled users and on EV ?

5. To Archive mailboxes which are hidden

http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/processing-hidden-mailboxes-enterprise-vault

5. Archive Mailboxes whose AD accounts  are disabled

https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.TECH76587

5. Enable few mailboxes on EV and check

EV version is 11 and OS version Win2012

Regards

Srinivasa K

[GertjanA]

To be able to disable those mailboxes, you need to 'unhide them'.

You can do this via SQL see below. You might want to figure out another where, to make sure you only change the accounts you want.

USE EnterpriseVaultDirectory
UPdate ExchangeMailboxEntry
Set MbxExchangeState = '0'
Where MbxExchangeState = '2'
GO

ONce done, status will be changed to what it was by running provisioning.

[skrish]

to archive - hidden mailboxes we have a plan to implement registry change, 

http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/processing-hidden-mailboxes-enterprise-vault

Our concern is. before we implement registry change to archive  both disabled and Hidden mailboxes, thought to disable archiving for all 1,200 disabled mailboxes which are on dedicated exchange server.

as the content are already availble on EV , why the mailboxes are not listed in case if we try to enable/disable mailbox

[GertjanA]

Hi,

As follows:

You have a mailbox which is a normal mailbox, and being archived as normal. Now the user leaves. According to your procedures, this mailbox now is member of a different group, and archived immediately, or is left to be archived completely after a set period of time (30 days?). Let's assume the 2nd scenario.

User works at your company, mails are archived. You have the registry keys set to archive hidden mailboxes and disabled accounts.

User leaves. Mailbox is hidden in Exchange, user account is disabled in AD. EV archives this mailbox until it is deleted. There is no 'automatic' 'disable archiving'. You want to disable the mailbox for archiving in EV. You open the tool to disable mailbox, mailbox does not show...

Because EV (simpliefied) uses exchange lookup, it will not see the mailbox as it is hidden from adresbook. The same like you want to send a mail to this mailbox, and try to lookup the name in the addressbook of Exchange.....

So, you need to 'unhide' the mailbox in regards to EV to be able to disable archiving for it. Once disabled, when you then run provisioning again (in EV), the mailbox will be 'hidden again'.

Does that clarify?

[skrish]

thanks for your detailed explanation.

I apologies may be my questions some how confused you it seems.

We had created a new EV Policy for Terminated users and provisioned through security group called EV Terminated users . EV policy is set to Archive the emails, if its more thab 0 days old.

Later we identified all disabled user accounts in our organization. exported all 1000+ users mailbox to PST and Import them to EV Server and added the user to EV Terminated users group and disabled mailbox, hidden from GAL.

these disabled users archive is availble on EV Server.

When I ran archving task on that perticular disabled mailbox server, the report shows as 

No action taken: mailbox hidden OR No action taken: Windows account disabled.

Hence thought to implement registry keys to Archive if the accounts are disabled or hidden from GAL.

before implementing , i was in a impression that, as the archive is availble, for all disabled  the mailbox may list to disable archiving, so that I can create registry key to avoid performance isssue on the server,

My requirement is to , Archive all disabled users contents to EV server, so that we can delete all 1,000+ user accounts and mailbox from AD and Exchange. can you guide me to achive this?

going forward, if any users leaves the company, may be instead of disabling the account , hidden from GAL, we will add them to EV terminated provision group, so that it can completely archive all the mailbox content to EV and later disable archiving for this mailbox and delete mailbx and AD.

is this procedure OK?

Regards

Srinivasa K

[GertjanA]

Hi Srinivasa,

From the sound of it, it might be the registry key is in the wrong place.

On a x64 OS, they should be under:

HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\KVS\Enterprise Vault\Agents.

DWORD, ProcessHiddenMailboxes, decimal value = 1

DWORD, ExcludeDisabledADAccounts, decimal value = 0

Set keys there, restart services.

as for your last entry:

going forward, if any users leaves the company, may be instead of disabling the account , hidden from GAL, we will add them to EV terminated provision group, so that it can completely archive all the mailbox content to EV and later disable archiving for this mailbox and delete mailbx and AD

That is indeed the way to go.

[skrish]

Hello Gertjan

Thanks you so much,  surely will place the registry keys on right place.

so by placing the registry key - hidden mailbox and disabled user accounts will be archived right? , as we have 1200 -1400 Disabled Mailboxes , hope fully there will not be an performance issue for EV server ? if its for exchange server, no issues as the server contain only disabled user accounts.

on the same topic: in case if the mailbox contents are exported to PST and imported to PST and again if we archive via provision groups, will it create duplicate entry on EV Server?

Regards

Srinivasa K

[JimmyNeutron]

Delete and Recreate the exchange target and add a new exchange archiving task for it. Then run the provisioning task and enable users once its done

[skrish]

Hi Rambone

can you please elobrate?

Regards

Srinivasa K

[skrish]

I performed few tasks yesterday and below are the observations;

1. as per yesterday archiving report, out of 1000+ separated employees, hardly 10 mailboxes were unhide from GAL ( could  be a human error, as the mailboxes were suppose to be hidden from GAL and user account should be disabled) , Hence i thought this will be a good start to Enable registry keys to exclude only disabled mailboxes.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\KVS\Enterprise Vault\Agents\

DWORD Value: ExcludeDisabledADAccounts

Value: 0 - Restart Exchange Mailbox Archiving tasks to take effect.

2. Manually started to run the task after making registry changes.

3. During manual run all 10 mailboxes which are hidden from GAL  started archiving. as the mailbox size was very huge ( 20+ GB) , still archiving is running , I could see mailbox size is reduced from Exchange end and size in increase of Number of items and size archiving.

4. for testing purpose tried to enable /disable mailbox from Archiving , it was not listed. as per yesterday's reply, I belive mailbox suppose to be unhide from GAL in order to list the mailbox for Enable /Disable Archiving.

5. In case if I create registry key changes to process archival even if the mailboxes are hidden from GAL, then there could be more load on exchange and EV server , as it has to process more than 1000 mailboxes. planning to run the tasks during non - business hours and pause them once the business hours starts and repeat the same procedure till we complete archiving activity for all 1000+ users,

My query is, By enabling the registry ley to process hidden from GAL mailboxes. will that allow me to enable /disable mailboxes from Archiving ? will the mailbox lists there? 

any other suggstions to achive this?

Regards

Srinivasa K