I have used Barracuda's on-premise and cloud archiving tool. It works great, and you set the retention policies. Users can delete and you'll still have a tool for discovery. You can also allow users to search their own archives via the Barracuda portal or an Outlook add-on. you can use that tool to justify low storage quotas, since messages are in the archive anyway. You can use it with on-premise or Office 365 and I assume non-Exchange systems.
Based on the level of the tool you purchase, you can also replicate your folder structure. There are other tools like Mimecast. Barracuda is just what I've used a number of times without issue. On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 5:12 PM, Michael B. Smith <mich...@smithcons.com> wrote: > Archives are challenges – for both users and administrators. > > > > Users think their **stuff** has disappeared. Administrators have to track > multiple “real” mailboxes (and quotas) that theoretically are a single > logical mailbox, instead of one mailbox – never mind the searching hassles. > > > > Outlook is also optimized now for a single quick local search and then > fires off a search request to the server – and it can be configured to not > even try the local cache first (as you want to do in a VDI environment). > Searching the archive(s) is just more hassle. > > > > I’m not quoting a Microsoft opinion by saying that personal archive are a > mistake – it’s my personal opinion. But I think it’s clear based on the > evolution of records management in Exchange and the other Office Servers > that MSFT has also come to that conclusion. > > > > *From:* listsad...@lists.myitforum.com [mailto:listsadmin@lists. > myitforum.com] *On Behalf Of *Maglinger, Paul > *Sent:* Wednesday, April 19, 2017 4:25 PM > *To:* 'exchange@lists.myitforum.com' > *Subject:* [Exchange] RE: Exchange User Mailbox Size Limits > > > > Thanks for the clarification Michael. I’ve find your comment about the > personal archives interesting. Can you elaborate (beside what I see as > moving **stuff** from one mailbox database to another and ultimately > having lots of **stuff** in 2 places now instead of one)? That, and > personal archives seem to be a particular challenge to eDiscovery and 3rd > party applications such as Exchange Manager that seem to have trouble > getting into them to poke around. > > > > Paul > > > > *From:* listsad...@lists.myitforum.com [mailto:listsadmin@lists. > myitforum.com <listsad...@lists.myitforum.com>] *On Behalf Of *Michael B. > Smith > *Sent:* Wednesday, April 19, 2017 2:55 PM > *To:* exchange@lists.myitforum.com > *Subject:* [Exchange] RE: Exchange User Mailbox Size Limits > > > > Google doesn’t back it up. Neither does Office 365. They just have > “another copy” in a remote datacenter. > > > > Office 365 keeps two current copies in your local datacenter, another > current copy in a remote datacenter, and a seven day lagged copy in a > remote datacenter. > > > > I don’t know the google specifics, but I’m certain it is similar. > > > > However, in both cases, remember that they are NOT using “enterprise class > disk subsystems”. They are using JBOD. So disk is cheap and failures are > expected. > > > > Personal archives were a mistake. You can see that MSFT is heading in that > direction by increasing primary mailbox sizes from 25 GB to 50 GB and now > 100 GB… > > > > I have a lot of clients that just gave up on quotas in the 2013 timeframe. > Even more in the 2016 timeframe. Others keep quotas just in case of mail > loops. Some still keep quotas but, as Paul points out, they are > increasingly difficult to justify. > > > > *From:* listsad...@lists.myitforum.com [mailto:listsadmin@lists. > myitforum.com <listsad...@lists.myitforum.com>] *On Behalf Of *Maglinger, > Paul > *Sent:* Tuesday, April 18, 2017 1:51 PM > *To:* 'exchange@lists.myitforum.com' > *Subject:* [Exchange] RE: Exchange User Mailbox Size Limits > > > > Ooooooo… a can of worms! > > > > Our default for most users is PSAR at 160MB > > Our “special” people get PSARs somewhere between 200MB and 500MB – the > higher levels mostly to Marketing and Real Estate folks who can’t get their > vendors to use sftp for ridiculously large graphic and CAD files. That > being said, we have a 20MB limit on incoming mail. We have one exec who is > capped at 1.5GB and another at 2GB (20,000 and 28,000 items respectively). > The justification for increasing the mailbox limit is usually “if my > mailbox fills up I’ll miss important email”. So you increase it again, it > fills up, increase, it fills, rinse, repeat, rinse… > > > > We currently have a group of users using Exchange Personal Archives with > Retention Policies and Tags. These currently have no limits on them which > is doing a great job of proving that the more space you give a user the > more “stuff” they will put in there. Case in point with the mailbox > limits. It also proves that users will put the longest retention tag on > everything they keep. The other users are still using PSTs for now, which > would be migrated into Personal Archives if we continue to move that > direction. And we’re talking terabytes in that alone. > > > > The main issue here isn’t the storage. I could easily throw terabytes at > the servers to accommodate. The issue is backup and recovery. I know, I > know, we’ve been told that if we’re running a DAG that tape backups are > necessarily needed but tape backup is part of our DR strategy. The problem > is if you’re going to back up your mailbox databases it has to go > somewhere, whether on tape or disk-to-disk. We could backup to the cloud > but there is an expense to that as well. > > > > And it’s hard to impose quotas on mailboxes without the users pointing to > Google mail and saying “They give me 15GB!!! Why can’t we have 15GB???” > The fact is that Google has the resources to backup and restore that kind > of data. > > > > Good luck! > > > > Paul > > > > > > *From:* listsad...@lists.myitforum.com [mailto:listsadmin@lists. > myitforum.com <listsad...@lists.myitforum.com>] *On Behalf Of *Carol Fee > *Sent:* Tuesday, April 18, 2017 12:08 PM > *To:* exchange@lists.myitforum.com > *Subject:* [Exchange] Exchange User Mailbox Size Limits > > > > I’m curious to know what/if any user mailbox size limits people are > setting these days. So …. My questions are > > > > Are you using Exchange on premise/Azure/Office 365 ? (We are Exchange on > prem) > > > > Do you use an archiving solution for your Exchange mailboxes ? (We are > using Barracuda Message Archiver) > > > > If so, what is archived ? (We automatically archive nightly anything >50kb) > > > > What have you set for size limits on your Exchange mailboxes ? > > > > Thanks in advance. > > > > > * ------------------------------ * > > *Carol Fee* > > Network Administrator > > 617-338-0623 <(617)%20338-0623> > > c...@massbar.org > > > > > > * Massachusetts Bar Association* > > 20 West Street > > Boston, MA 02111-1204 > (617) 338-0500 > > >
