Archive Mail : a Functional Lotus Email Archiving Solution

Archive Mail is a functional archiving solution which responds to the needs of administrators by allowing them to manage archiving policies efficiently and automatically, whilst still guaranteeing their users access to their documents and attached files.

Archive Mail automates the archiving of messages, calendar entries, task and users' contacts, to one or more archives hosted on either dedicated or sharedfunction servers. Archiving policies can be based on document ageing criteria.

Archive Mail allows administrators to manage different archive databases and easily implement ILM (Information Lifecycle Management) policies, and to correctly align the storage costs of the archived documents with their value to the business.

Once Archive Mail is implemented, users' documents that meet the configured ageing parameters for archiving are transferred to an archive database at a frequency predetermined by their profile administrator.

If the archive database does not exist, it is automatically created and a link is added into the users mailbox to facilitate access.

For recently moved documents, the pointers which are left in the end-users' mail databases, redirect them to the associated documents in the archive databases.

This has the dual advantage of reducing the size of the source database (by reducing the space occupied by these documents and their attachment), while at the same time preserving unchanged the visual aspect of the different views and folders of the mailbox. These document pointers can then be configured to be removed progressively over time, at a rate pre-defined by the administrator in the users' mail archiving profiles.

End-users have the option to perform multi-criteria searches of their archived messages, as well as those of other users who have given them delegated rights. This option allows them to target their searches to the database(s) which corresponds to a particular year's archiving.

Archive Mail : a Functional Lotus Email Archiving Solution

Archive Mail is a functional archiving solution which responds to the needs of administrators by allowing them to manage archiving policies efficiently and automatically, whilst still guaranteeing their users access to their documents and attached files.

Benefits for the users :

Improved productivity due to automatic management of their archives,
Access to archived documents from both Notes and iNotes clients and via a link placed in the body of recently archived mails,
Multi-criteria searching.

Benefits for the Administrators :

Optimisation of Domino infrastructure,
Align messaging storage costs, value for the business and quota policies,
Automated and centralised management of archiving policies.

The product has one complementary module :

Archive Mail on File : Solution for backing up archives in the form of an HTML file hierarchy.

Management of Messaging Data Volume Over Time

Initially, Archive Mail transfers the oldest documents into archive databases which are placed on a Domino archiving server. The breakdown by year permits an initial level of storage for the data (one database per annum), and also the separation of the messages from the global volume (the users' mailbox) into sub-volumes (the archives). This separation allow us to go beyond the limits imposed by the size of the .nsf file architecture, and to manage the data in relationship to its importance.

Later on, with the complementary module Archive Mail on CD, the archive database can be transferred to CD/DVD or another form of media, so it can be removed from the archive server. Once done the archive databases can be accessed directly from the media by the user (CD/DVD), or stored on some other media (Tape, Disk etc..) from where they can be restored by an administrator, on request from the users.

The Archive Mail process integrates the management of these types of media by preparing the databases to be written (re-build of all the views indexes) and for being accessed directly.

Another option consists of using the complementary module Archive Mail On File to transform the content of the archive database (Notes .nsf file) into a hierarchy of HTML files. With this option, there is no further need to use a Notes client to access the archived messages, a simple internet will allow navigation amongst the structured files and to read them. These files can then either be cut to a CD/DVD, or made available on a file server.

The above schema shows Archive Mail and its Complementary Modules' management of the different methods
for storing a message over the course of its existence.

Administrative Requests

Archive Mail contains an Admin Request engine which can run three type of action:
Removal of a database(s) from the archiving process
Moving to an archive database
Purging of an archive database
This last item is linked to the configured retention delay in the archiving profile, and requires the approval of a manager before the final deletion of the database concerned can be completed.

Rapid Implementation

Statistics

Archive Mail provides administrators with a wide range of statistics for management purposes:
number of documents archived
Size in Mb of documents archived

Duration (in seconds) of the archiving process
Rate of transfer in Kb par second for the archiving process
These statistics are provided for all of the documents, as well as for the most recent archives.

History and Detailed Information on the Archives

For all the databases created, the following information is available:
Path et ReplicaID of the archive database
Name of the server hosting the archive database
Number of documents, and size of the database
ODS version of the database
Preparation for storage on CD/DVD
Creation date / last modification of the database
History of the administrative actions launched

- The installation of Archive Mail does not require any specific component.
- Archive Mail uses the Domino technology as an addin Task server.
- No specific configuration is required for the Domino server or the OS.

However, due to the nature of the application, it is important to schedule volumes according to the archive volume that will be processed by the application.

ArchiveMail on DB 2.6a is supported for the following clients: