Archive Manager 5.9.1 - Installation and Configuration Guide for Exchange

CPU (Total Cores)*: The total amount of required CPU cores increases as the number of active threads increases. The store management service will export a single mailbox in a single thread. More active threads allow a faster ingestion rate. Full Text Index also has the ability to run multiple processing threads. The administrator needs to find the appropriate balance.

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Memory**: The total amount of required operating memory may be lower during initial archiving. As more data is archived and indexed, the memory footprint will increase.

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Index Disk(s)***: The performance of the index disk will greatly impact the general performance of the product. For best results, use dedicated attached storage. New indexing technology allows the ability to span the index across multiple disk for both performance and fault tolerance.

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Attachment Disk****: The performance of the attachment disk has less impact on the general performance of the product, but for the fastest retrievals, a faster disk is recommended.


	NOTE: When running the 64-bit Archive Manager Full Text Search service, a minimum of 8 GB RAM is recommended. The total amount of memory recommended can be calculated by determining the disk space used by the indexes (messages + attachments) in GB, dividing that number by 100, and adding it to the 8 GB RAM minimum. For example, if the total space used for your indexes is 400 GB, then you should have (8 + 400/100) or 12 GB of RAM installed on your Archive Manager system.

Dedicated IIS server

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Dedicated IIS Server*: The IIS Server can host multiple instances of the Archive Manager website. The website also supports Network Load Balancing (NLB) with IP-based affinity. Multiple web servers can be configured to host multiple Archive Manager website instances.

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CPU (Total Cores)**: Total cores required will vary based on message policies. If stubbing is used, consider your environment moderate access or heavy access and plan accordingly.

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OS Disk***: The OS disk will store attachments temporarily while users are downloading them. Disk speeds are typically not a bottleneck.

Sizing the Microsoft SQL database and Archive Manager attachment store

Archive Manager’s storage recommendations must be considered when planning storage, whether the data is to be stored on the same hardware as the software or stored on a separate high-speed disk. Specifically, there needs be either capacity for growth of archive data when Archive Manager is installed or the ability to increase capacity as the archive grows, or both.


	IMPORTANT: For best performance, it is recommended that the full-text index files not reside on the same physical disk as other Archive Manager data repositories—neither the SQL database nor an attachment store.

The Archive Manager database must always be stored on high performance disks, such as a local SCSI RAID 5 disk (with as many physical spindles as possible), or a fast high-speed attached disk.

The Archive Manager attachment store may be stored on a slower disk to reduce cost, as archived attachment retrieval is not as speed-sensitive as a database.

Table 2. Archive Manager storage recommendations
Number of users	Number of messages (millions)	SQL Server database (GB)	Full Text Index	Attachment store (GB)
100	1	4	1.6	40
1,000	10	40	16	400
5,000	50	200	80	2,000
10,000	100	400	160	4,000