Last month, I posted an article titled “What’s a good mailbox size?” where I discussed many of the considerations an architect must take into account when sizing storage for a new email system. In that post, I also set up a survey where I asked readers to answer six short questions about what they think makes a good size for a mailbox, as well as what future plans they might have for system growth. As promised in last month’s post, I am sharing the results of the survey now.

While the total number of respondents was somewhat less than I hoped for, the quality of those responses from survey participants is greatly appreciated. No one skipped any of the first four questions; the last two were “if” type and should have been skipped if not applicable. Thanks to all those who took the time to share their answers. I will share each question and the responses by percentage below.

Continue reading As it Turns Out, a Good Mailbox Size Is…

The other day I came in on the tail end of a conversation involving PSTs. The thought was to archive some former employees’ email into PST files, store them on the network, and let HR access them as needed. I waited for my turn to contribute to the discussion, and led in with “sure, and then we can roast marsh mallows over the burning server.” To say the reaction was underwhelming just doesn’t quite paint the picture. The silence was deafening. It seems that not everyone understands that PSTs are evil. Today, I hope to help fix that.

In a post earlier this year, my colleague Paul Cunningham discussed some options for “What to do With Those PST Files.” His article gives you some great alternatives to storing mail in PSTs. What I would like to do in this article is build upon that by giving you some of the reasons why you want to move away from PSTs.

Continue reading Even more reasons to stop using PSTs

You’re ready to deploy Exchange, but you’re not quite sure if you have the storage chops to accommodate the change. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could simulate the installation and uncover any hassles that might be waiting for you when you start the process for real? Such a nicety exists. It’s called Jetstress, and Microsoft recently released  a guide on using it with any version of Exchange you plan to implement.

The 49-page document prepared by Senior Consultant Neil Johnson explains how Jetstress works, how to plan and perform tests with the software and how to automate the process. Although the guide discusses determining if a storage setup can meet the demands of an Exchange installation, it doesn’t offer guidance on storage design for the software. If you’re interested in that aspect of the preparation process you might want to consult another Microsoft offering: Mailbox Server Storage Design.

During the design phase of an Exchange deployment, theoretical targets are set for handling expected input-output loads for the software’s databases. Without Jetstress, those targets would be untested until Exchange was installed. Jetstress can be used to test those targets without such an installation. That’s important because it lets you see how your installed storage and server infrastructure will behave during an actual deployment of Exchange. Actual behavior, as predicted by Jetstress, can be very different from theoretical predictions cooked up during the design phase, especially when your storage infrastructure is shared or your storage design is complex.

Continue reading Microsoft Jetstress guide useful for smooth Exchange transitions

With data burdens for organizations increasing at dizzying rates, storage management has become more important than ever. That wasn’t been lost on Microsoft in its continuing development of Exchange Server 2010. The software maker has applied a new philosophy to how the application handles storage. It takes into account the declining price of storage and the pressure to improve performance across the storage infrastructure. It embraces using direct-attached storage instead of disk arrays, continuous replication to spare servers instead of RAID or clustering and cheap disk arrays as a substitute for tape backups.

Exchange 2010, as did Exchange 2007, has improved its handling of input/output loads for a given number of simultaneous users. One way it does that is by shelving a technique for storing copies of email messages that Microsoft has used in all previous versions of Exchange. In those versions, Exchange tries to store all copies of a message at a single location on disk. That saves disk space but reduces performance. Exchange 2010 stores copies wherever there’s free space. That may eat up more space, but Microsoft felt the performance improvement was worth it. Those kinds of improvements in Exchange 2010 opens the door for IT departments to use more economical alternatives to traditional and expensive solutions, such as substituting serial attached storage for network attached storage.

Continue reading Exchange 2010 has some storage twists

That is the question that came to my mind when I was considering the career options of Exchange Server administrators.

I know that other IT professions carry varying degrees of complexity, but still wonder how often the email admin is the smartest person in the room.  Putting aside the ego behind that question there are definitely a lot of areas in which an email admin needs to have an understanding.

Let’s consider some of the technical skills that a good email admin needs.

Email Servers – often the email administrator is working in environments with more than one email server product in production.  Even those who only manage one server product will still encounter other products as they deal with outside parties, often trying to troubleshoot a mail delivery problem.

Operating Systems – the email admin is also usually responsible for the operating system running on the server.  Again in heterogeneous environments this may mean several different editions of Microsoft Windows as well as some form of Linux or Unix.

High Availability – larger environments often require high availability for their email systems.  This means the email admin needs to understand cluster, network load balancing, and the Exchange Server high availability features.

Firewalls – every email system needs to move data to and from the internet, so an understanding of firewalls from different vendors is necessary.

DNS – this plays an important role in several ways, not only the MX records but also concepts such as split DNS and how important reverse DNS is for delivery. Continue reading Are Email Admins the Smartest People in the Room?

Clark: "We hire attorneys for their IP and not their IT."

Electronic discovery has increased demands on storage systems, and that’s likely to continue.

According to Michael A. Clark, a managing director at EDDix LLC, an electronic discovery consulting firm, corporations with revenues greater than $1 billion is carrying around a caseload 150 active matters, 35 to 40 percent of which involve electronic discovery. With the new rules of Federal Civil Procedure adopted last December, he observed, “we’re going to see an ink blotting downward of electronic discovery to ever smaller matters.” He projects that within the next three years that 35 to 40 percent will move to 75 percent.

Finding information within the enterprise has always been a challenging task for legal ferrets, but those challenges have ballooned in recent times, according to Clark. “There are now not only more things to find, but more places to look for them than there had been before,” he said in a video interview posted at SearchStorage.com.

Finding information is a big challenge to operators of an enterprise network, but so too is deciding what should be stored and how long to store it, Clark noted.

“A number of corporations are devoting considerable resources to creating retention policies and then trying to enforce those policies,” he observed.

Continue reading E-discovery demands to double in three years

In-the-cloud storage got a setback last week when both HP’s and Yahoo’s online storage services were shut down for good. HP’s Upline has had a rocky past, with the young service having experienced numerous problems and delays, and reports of malfunction and inappropriate access. Of course, there is no shortage of other cloud vendors taking their place–and the ads are full of “Do you need an alternative to Upline” come-ons.

We’re still hearing rumors, and most recently, “confirmed rumors”, that Google’s Gdrive is ready to roll. Gdrive sounds revolutionary in design. It wil supposedly offer unlimited storage–allowing you to actually store the entire contents of your hard drive in the cloud. Local and online files are synchronized through a web interface so for example, you could start working on a project at the office, and then later on pick it up at an Internet cafe–or even on your smartphone. Gdrive will also be integrated with other Google applications and services. The security ramifications are immense though, and there’s as of yet no word as to how security would be provided. I’m not so sure I would want my entire hard drive replicated in the cloud. Also, it would seem doubtful that users who have to comply with various regulations regarding storage and backup would be able to take advantage of it, but we’ll wait to see on that one.

Before moving to an online backup environment, it would be important for a corporate user to review their data retention policy and any compliance requirements they face, and make a judgment as to whether in-the-cloud backup could adequately meet those policies and requirements.