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Curing the PST blues

Editorial Type: Opinion     Date: 05-2014    Views: 1401   





End user-created email archives present a number of challenges for organisations trying to manage storage performance, argues Peter Mullens of C2C Systems

Any large data migration is a daunting exercise that requires ongoing effort, careful planning and exact execution. As organisations adopt new cloud technologies such as Office 365, migrate onto the latest versions of Exchange, or change their end-user desktop infrastructure, administrators are often faced with the challenges caused by legacy PST files.

PST files are email 'container files' usually created by end users using Microsoft Outlook, typically using the "Auto Archive" function enabled by default in Outlook 2003 and 2007. This auto-archive function allowed users to bypass mailbox quota limits which IT departments often enforced in order to manage capacity and performance in their Microsoft Exchange server. PST files are also widely used by end users for long-term storage of email for a range of business purposes, such as retaining all correspondence relating to a particular contract or customer.

This appears a good solution for the end user because these files are easy to create and use, but it causes a significant number of problems for IT administrators as well as the wider organisation. PST files can be located almost anywhere on end-user devices or network drives, and being under end-user control they are effectively unmanaged. They often contain business-critical data, but they may not be backed up and are liable to be lost or misplaced. Finally, the PST format itself is not robust, so files can get corrupted.

At C2C we find that client organisations have on average 2 to 4 PST files per active mailbox. A typical PST file will contain around 10,000 individual messages, which with attachments adds up to about 1GB of data. In storage terms, this doesn't sound a lot, but multiply this by the number of mailboxes and the scale of the problem becomes clear. Consider too that these emails contain business critical data such as supplier contracts, customer orders, research data etc.

The current versions of Exchange 2010 and 2013 have greatly improved capacity management, and cloud solutions such as Office 365 offer what is effectively 'unlimited' storage. This together with the use of in-place archiving or third-party archive solutions allows organisations to streamline and manage their email environments such that PST files are no longer needed.

The existence of PST files should be addressed either as part of the main email migration project or soon after. Consolidating all email data into a single central environment not only enhances end user experience and productivity but also ensures their data is protected and meets compliance requirements.

Discovering and migrating these thousands of unprotected PSTs scattered across the organisations' infrastructure is a challenge indeed. Just deleting some or all of these PST files will have a positive effect on operational processes, as well as eliminating much of the legal risk and uncertainty caused by unmanaged containers of email data sitting on corporate servers and end users' desktops, but there is danger in this 'catch all and dispose approach' that vital data will be unwittingly disposed of in the process.

Microsoft themselves have attempted to address the issue of legacy PST files by providing their 'PST Capture' tool. This is a free application that discovers PST files and migrates them into email inboxes. Whilst it does provide a basic capability it doesn't scale to up to the level typically required by medium size and larger organisations. It requires a high level of manual intervention and doesn't cover all the tasks involved in finding, organising, migrating and finally deleting PST files, so unless you are a company with less than 100 mailboxes, deployment of a robust third party solution is strongly recommended.

For those businesses that can gain control over the PST files across the organisation and migrate them back into Exchange or Office 365, they will be able to significantly reduce ongoing costs and improve operational performance by streamlining processes and centralising email storage. Such organisations will also be able to demonstrate compliance by implementing defensible deletion policies and responding effectively to information requests for eDiscovery and eDisclosure processes, Freedom of Information, Data Protection and Financial Regulation. NC

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