Thought I'd throw this in....

Does anyone know of any product which is capable of an HSM function for
Exchange?

I'm finding that a lot of companies are being faced with email overload -
people just refuse to delete old email. Microsoft's answer is the *.pst
personal folder, which allows you to store messages in a separate offline
file. Unfortunately this makes matters worse. Not only are pst's very
partial to corruption but when email is moved into these folders, it's
looses the single instance store feature that it had when it sat in the
Exchange DB. The net effect is that you end up with a slighly smaller
Exchange Db but with loads of large pst files. Additionally depending upon
your Managment class settings you could end up with multiple versions of
these pst files in your backups.

It would be great if there was an HSM function which would allow you to move
messages not accessed in x days to offline storage, yet maintaing the single
instance store feature.. Is this just a pipe dream or does someone know of a
product capable of such a feat?

Nathan


        -----Original Message-----
        From:   Del Hoobler [SMTP:hoobler AT US.IBM DOT COM]
        Sent:   Friday, January 07, 2000 9:28 AM
        To:     ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
        Subject:        Re: Exchange message level backup

        Thomas,

        No matter what any company/product claims...

        ...there still is NOT a "backup/restore" API
        that works at the mailbox/item level granularity.

        Even when Exchange 2000 comes out, it will NOT support
        that level of granularity via the online "backup/restore" API.

        The only way to do this is via non-backup/restore APIs
        (like MAPI, the messaging APIs.)
        Doing it through message APIs will "work" BUT
        there are a number of problems with it that
        have been discussed previously on this list server.
        Search through prior list updates for details.

        I noticed that the claim below says:
           "...no compromise in backup speed..."
        How about speed of restores?

        I attended the Microsoft Exchange Conference
        in Atlanta this year and in various different
        sessions Microsoft repeated that their
        direction for dealing with the "mailbox restore problem"
        will NOT be through added functionality to the
        backup restore API, but by breaking the IS into
        multiple databases AND by providing a "deleted mailbox"
        function (similar to the "deleted item" function in 5.5.)

        Thanks,

        Del

        ----------------------------------------------------

        Del Hoobler
        IBM Corporation
        hoobler AT us.ibm DOT com


        > Today I got the following announcement from xephon:
        >
        > "SCH Technologies has begun shipping Release 2.0 of its
dbBRZ/Exchange,
        > which
        > provides on-line back-up and recovery of Microsoft Exchange
databases.
        ...
        > Specifically, there's now full message-level recovery, done
through
        standard
        >
        > Exchange 5.5 functionality."
        >
        > On http://www.sch.com/press64.html I found the same text:
        >
        > "dbBRZ/Exchange 2.0 provides a complete backup, including full
        message-level
        > recovery,
        > with no compromise in backup speed, security, or server
performance. This
        is
        > accomplished
        > via standard MS Exchange Rel. 5.5 functionality, ..."
        >
        > I thought MS Exchange doesn't offer a standard way to do this?
        >
        > Does anyone know the pro's and con's of dbBRZ and/or when TSM
and/or
        > Microsoft will
        > provide an API to do full message-level recovery?
        >
        > Kind regards
        >
        > Thomas Rupp