* Archiving can keep Exchange systems from running out of space
A large percentage of e-mail users in the workplace still employ old versions of Microsoft Exchange. A recent survey we completed showed that 26% of Exchange users are still on Version 5.5 or earlier – meaning these users are now at least two generations behind the current version of Exchange.
One of the problems Exchange administrators face for versions earlier than 5.5 is a built-in database maximum of 16G bytes, which seriously limits the number of users per server. While Exchange 5.5 rectified this problem by significantly increasing the database size, the inherent limitations in the Exchange 5.5 architecture means that growing the database size also lengthens back-up and restore times.
One way around these problems is to implement an archiving system that will automatically off-load content from users’ mailboxes into an indexed and archived repository. For example, if an administrator provides a quota of 100M bytes per mailbox, this will limit the number of users that can practically be deployed per server to around 100 to 125. However, if an archiving system were available to make old messaging system content available to users even after it has been moved out of their mailboxes, an administrator could establish a 50M-byte quota, effectively doubling the number of users per server with no degradation in performance or lengthening of the back-up or server restoration process.
While an archiving system can extend the life of older versions of Exchange in this way, it also provides a number of other benefits, including much faster restoration in the event of a server crash, compliance with regulatory requirements, support for discovery if and when a company gets sued, enhancement of a company’s knowledge management capability and so forth.
Many companies that use Exchange 5.5 and earlier are looking to replace these systems, either with newer versions of Exchange or competing alternatives. But many are happy enough with these older versions – so an archiving system might be just what they need to extend the lives of these systems until they’re ready to switch to something newer.
