07 / 01 / 2014
If you have an existing Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2007 server environment and you are looking to migrate to Exchange 2010, 2013 or NHSmail, a few points need to be considered first and tools within Mailsafe can make that transition a simple one.Over the years, users have got used to the fact that they can keep and hoard emails ‘just in case’ they might need to return to them at some future date. This has led to bloated mailboxes which in turn leads to an unhealthy Exchange evironment as well as additional backup and storage costs. Alternatively PST archiving is used which again can result in problems with regard to corrupt files, difficulty in knowing where the PST files are, higher storage costs as well as difficulty in finding old emails.
As Exchange 2003 becomes redundant there is a clamour to upgrade to Exchange 2010/13 but within the NHS there is also a push to replace Exchange server with NHSmail (the national email and directory service available to NHS staff in England and Scotland).
NHSmail is effectively free to NHS sites and is secure to enable the sending of Patient Identifiable Data (PID).
The problem here is two fold in that Exchange 2010 is no longer single instance storage for emails. which means that your storage requirement will balloon significantly adding more cost into the storage, backup and restore element.
NHSmail on the other hand can only offer limited mailbox sizes and if a user exceeds their quota they will be restricted as to what they can do until it is reduced e.g. they won’t be able to send, or in some cases retrieve email.
According to the HSCIC, only 2% of mailboxes should be Platinum (2000MB), 3% Gold (1000MB), 80% Silver (400MB) and 15% Bronze (100MB).
Mailsafe can help address these issues in both situations, whether you are looking to migrate from one Exchange server to another, or looking to move over from Exchange to NHSmail.
The Mailsafe Mailbox Reducer component of our Exchange Compliance module integrates with Exchange and enables you to target user mailboxes, sweep up emails into the Mailsafe archive and delete these emails from Exchange, thereby reducing the storage requirement prior to migration.
Our research shows that by archiving and deleting emails that are older than 90 days, you will reduce your Exchange storage requirement by between 50-60% making that transition and migration to Exchange 2010 or NHSmail that much easier.
If you are moving to NHSmail, quite often sites choose not to migrate any mailbox data from Exchange into NHSmail. The answer is to simply archive all emails in Exchange to the Mailsafe archive, decommission the Exchange server and enable the users’ mailbox with NHSmail.
Via our Mailsafe toolbar within Outlook and the new Personal Folder Archiving feature, the user will be able to (manually or automatically) add emails to the Mailsafe archive (helping them to keep within their strict quota).
From the Mailsafe toolbar, users are able to search, find and view both ‘old’ emails that were on the Exchange server before migration and also ‘current’ emails that have been archived. In short their emails are still available to them and no email is lost.
Mailsafe is a low cost and effective solution that is easy to install, maintain and use with little training (if any) required.
If you are interested in knowing more, please contact our office directly and we will be happy to discuss Mailsafe in more detail, arrange a web demonstration, discuss pricing and cover any current special offers that we have available.