Archiving101.com

This is a question that has been asked many times.  During an upgrade to Exchange 2007 or even Exchange 2010 in the future, all mailbox data within the legacy Exchange 2003 Server would typically be migrated into the new Exchange 2007 Server. Since a migration will copy old, infrequently accessed, or fixed/static email data, it may be a time consuming and inefficient process depending on the volume of inactive data. The excessive bulk of this data will also impact performance and capacity on the new servers, and increase backup and restore times.

Using an email archiving solution prior to a migration delivers some distinct advantages:

• It identifies old or unnecessary email data so administrators can take informed, intelligent actions on whether to remove, archive, or migrate the data. This simplifies and streamlines migration to Exchange 2007.

• It retains archived email data in a format that can be accessed in the future to comply with various regulatory requirements and for e-discovery purposes. This eliminates any need for support or updates to legacy Exchange 2003 systems.

• It prevents from having to re-architect the storage tied to the Exchange 2007 system when the archiving system is installed after the migration as the Exchange 2007 storage sizing will be sized to include the inactive data which could contribute to 80% of the total storage.  Deploying the archive before also ensures that the storage for the Exchange Servers is adequately sized.

After a migration with email archiving, Exchange 2007 servers will be much more efficient by maximizing data storage usage and performance. The reduction of the storage footprint of the Exchange Server will also significantly improve the Backup and restore times. Email archiving provides ongoing benefits after the migration such as mailbox size and quota management so users no longer need to store data in PST files, and sophisticated search capabilities to enforce policies on inappropriate email content. While Exchange 2007 includes limited archiving in the form of Managed Folders and Journaling, these features do not provide a full solution for compliance nor storage management.