Executive Overview
In-Place Archiving eliminates the need for personal store (.pst) files and allows users to store messages in an archive mailbox accessible in Outlook 2010 and later and Outlook Web App.
Notable Features
- In-Place Archive
- Manual and Automatic Moves
- Archive Quotas
- Archive Imports
Architecture/Components
An In-Place Archive is an additional mailbox (called an archive mailbox) enabled for a mailbox user. Users can manually move their items into their In-Place archive, or an administrator can use retention policies to automatically perform this.
- Archive location: A user’s archive can be provisioned on the same mailbox database as the user’s primary mailbox, another mailbox database on the same Mailbox server, or a mailbox database on another Mailbox server in the same Active Directory site. This provides flexibility to use tiered storage architecture and to store archive mailboxes on a different storage subsystem, such as near-line storage, or leverage cloud-based archives in cross-premises implementations of Exchange 2010 and later via Exchange Online Archiving.
- Moving Messages: The following actions are supported for moving messages to into an archive: Move or copy messages manually | Move or copy messages using Inbox rules | Move messages using retention policies | Import messages from .pst files
- Archive Quotas: Each archive can be configured with one of two quotas, a archive warning quota, which logs an event 10022 in the application event log but continues to allow archiving to continue; and the archive quota, which prevents further archiving once it is reached and logs the event 8537.
- Archive Imports: Exchange supports the import of message items into the Archive via three methods.
- First: Restore each user’s archive data to their mailboxes in Exchange and then migrate the mailboxs to an Exchange on-premises or Exchange online in-place archive.
- Second: Export archive data to PST files, which Exchange can then ingest into an In-place archive using the native PST Capture and new-mailboximport-request tools.
- Third: Use a software tool available by Microsoft Partners that can support direct imports from other third-party archive platforms.
Client support in for In-place Archiving: The following clients are supported for In-place archiving in Exchange 2013: Outlook 2007*, Outlook 2010, Outlook 2013 and Outlook Web App. Exchange ActiveSync does not support In-place Archiving.
*Note that you will need to deploy the Office 2007 cumulative update released in February 2011 in order to get this to work. Also, Office 2007 users will not be able to perform the following tasks:
- Search archive and primary mailboxes simultaneously: Outlook 2007 does not support the Web calls to perform simultaneous searches on an archive mailbox. Users will need to perform two independent searches or use Outlook Web App.
- Archive policies: Users cannot use archive policies to move items to the archive mailbox. Default policies can still be applied and users can use Outlook Web App to apply policies as a workaround. Read my article on archive policies.
Archive Limitations: It’s important to note that Outlook clients require an active connection to the Exchange server in order to access the In-place Archive mailbox. This is because Outlook uses Autodiscover service to locate the user’s archive mailbox. Even if the Outlook profile is configured to use cached Exchange mode, it is important to note that the Archive folder is not cached locally on the user’s computer. This is an important limitation especially if you have mobile users who tend to be out of the office. You would need to train them on accessing the Archive Mailbox via Outlook Web App.
Common Administrative Tasks
- Create an archive mailbox: Via EAC or PowerShell:
New user: New-Mailbox with the -Archive parameter
Existing user: Enable-Mailbox “chimp” -Archive
Verify Archive was created: Get-Mailbox <Name> | FL Name,*Archive* - Move an archive mailbox: Via EAC or PowerShell New-MoveRequest -Identity ‘ceo@chimpcorp.com’ -ArchiveOnly -ArchiveTargetDatabase “DB01”
- Disable an archive mailbox: Disable-Mailbox “Road Chimp” -Archive
- Retrieve mailbox statistics and folder statistics: Get-mailboxstatistics -Identity ‘ceo@chimpcorp.com’ | Format-List *Archive*
- Test archive connectivity: Test-ArchiveConnectivity -UserSmtp ceo@chimpcorp.com
- Configure the Move to Archive action:
Create a retention tag with a “Move to Archive action”
Link the tag to a retention policy
Apply the retention policy to a mailbox - Connect a mailbox to an archive: Connect-Mailbox -Identity “8734c04e-981e-4ccf-a547-1c1ac7ebf3e2” -Archive -User “chimp” -Database “DB01”
- Import a .PST file to a user’s mailbox Archive: New-MailboxImportRequest -Mailbox “Road Chimp” -IsArchive -FilePath “\FILESRV01PSTFilesArchivesRoad ChimpArchive.pst”
Top PowerShell Commands/Tools
– New/Enable/Disable-Mailbox -Archive
– New-MoveRequest -ArchiveOnly -ArchiveTargetDatabase
– Test-ArchiveConnectivity
– New-MailboxImportRequest
References/Links
Technet Article on In-Place Archiving
Cmdlets: Messaging Policy and Compliance
Technet Article on Outlook 2007 client support for In-place Archiving
Exchange Team Article on In-Place Archiving
Exchange Online Archiving Site
Link to PST Capture tool
Link to Microsoft Pinpoint > 3rd Party Archiving Tools