On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 9:50 PM, Andrew S. Baker<[email protected]> wrote:
> Ultimately, it's a factor of single-instance storage.

  It seems to me that, in the general case, it should be possible to
have both SIS and individual element restores.  Assume SIS is
implemented as a reference counted system of blobs, with mail folders
being a list of references to those blobs.  On a restore of a mail
folder, for each element, check to see what blob the reference points
to.  If it isn't there, restore the blob before you restore the
reference.  If it is there, just restore the reference, and increment
the reference count.

  Unix has been doing this in the filesystem with hard links for 30+
years now, so the general concept is certainly feasible.

  Now, Exchange's design may not lend itself to this technique, for
whatever reason.  But that's not "SIS means you can't do restore of a
single mailbox", that's "Exchange's design means you can't do restore
of a single mailbox".  As I've said, there may be good reasons for
this design aspect, or it may just be historical accident.  I have no
idea.

-- Ben

~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~
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