Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/50188
PRODUCTS IN PRACTICE: PEER REVIEWS OF NEW AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES "Email systems are fundamentally communication systems, not storage systems." is an ancillary mailbox on the Exchange Server for a given user that exists for the purpose of storing aged mailbox items. By moving email messages from the active mailbox to the personal archive, the personal archive feature mitigates performance degradation of the active mailbox associated with the of messages. Administrators may see an even greater improvement in performance on the email system as a whole if they exercise the option to house personal archives on a different mailbox server or in the cloud. By virtue of the fact that the new personal archive features are built in to Exchange 2010, it is relatively simple for an administrator to enable and configure archiving for the entire enterprise. It is quick and easy to create a tag (a rule), associate that tag with a policy and assign that policy to a mailbox. Microsoft also included litigation hold and cross- mailbox search functions. The litigation hold option allows the administrator to preserve mailbox items to ensure compliance with a litigation hold. The cross- mailbox search function finds items across the system based on criteria specified by the administrator and preserves copies of the found results for e-discovery purposes. With Outlook/Exchange 2010, the end user sees the personal archive as a second set of folders, which is no different from a PST file. Unlike a PST file, the end user does not need to affirmatively open the personal archive; it's just there. The integration of the personal archive is tight enough that it is included in the client when accessing email messages via Outlook Anywhere or OWA. What aspects of the product could use further development? There is a trade-off in that the individual user surrenders a great deal of control to Exchange administrators. Some flexibility is lost. Auto- archive rules created by individual end users under previous versions of Outlook/Exchange may be lost or overridden, even if said rules are more aggressive than the rules set by the administrator. Default rules may be inadvertently applied to personal archives where they are not wanted. As such, there might be an opportunity to improve rule management. ILTA www.iltanet.org Tech Potpourri 11 storage