Enterprise Vault™ Introduction and Planning

How to plan an archiving strategy for FSA

Why you are implementing file system archiving will to a great extent determine your archiving strategy. For example, you may need to store legal and financial documents for a set period of time in order to comply with industry regulations. You need to consider which files need to be stored and where they are in your file system. Obviously, the more organized your file system is, the easier it will be to define the files to archive.

When you have decided which file servers need to be included in archiving, you need to decide where the Archive Points should be created. These mark the top of each folder structure that is to be stored in a single archive. To ensure that the archive does not fill up too quickly, you need to consider the size of the folder structure below each Archive Point.

How files below an Archive Point are archived is determined by assigning an archiving policy to the target Archive Point. Archiving policies include rules to filter what files are archived and settings such as the Retention Category to be assigned, how permissions on files are to be treated and the type of shortcuts to be created. You can use Volume Policies for the whole folder structure and override settings for certain folders using Folder Policies. For example, in most folders under a particular Archive Point you may want to archive documents and leave shortcuts. However, in one folder you just want a copy of the files archived and the original files left in the folder. You can see that archiving policies could potentially become very complicated if your file system is not organized. By keeping policies simple, it is easier to manage your file system archiving.

If files are going to be removed from the file server when they are archived, you need to consider whether to leave shortcuts or just let users search the archives for stored data. Your choice will to some extent depend on the experience that you want users to have when accessing archived files; how transparent do you want the operation to be.

If you want to use shortcuts, you need to decide what kind to use - placeholder or internet shortcuts. Placeholder shortcuts are more transparent than internet shortcuts. However, your choice will also depend on the type of storage devices you are using.

Check that your backup and virus scanning applications honor the file system offline attribute if you use placeholder shortcuts. If they do not, they may try to recall each file during a run or scan. A backup mode program is included with Enterprise Vault to enable you to switch the file server into backup mode before running your application. This prevents files from being recalled.

Using shortcuts on frequently modified files may mean that a large number of versions of the file are stored. You may want to consider running the Enterprise Vault pruning process at intervals, to delete earlier version of files in the file system archives.

If you want to set up special folders on target file systems that are created and managed by Enterprise Vault, you can use the Managed Folders feature.