Understanding the Exchange Information Store
Funny, just as the discussion heats up on my blog about the single instance storage of Exchange, Exchange.org has an article on it. I guess they can expect you dropping by Bill ? 🙂
We would like to welcome Rodney Buike to our team of authors as he presents his first article to MSExchange.org readers. The Information Store is the heart and soul of Exchange Server 2000 and 2003. Understanding the fundamentals of the Information Store is important for anyone managing an Exchange server.
[Via MSExchange.org]
Dunno – I only have a week free between now and Lotusphere in Orlando (I’m presenting again – wooppee!) and it might take more than that to make the exchange message store reliable…
🙂
—* Bill
Thanks for the new angle.. It has been a while since I attacked the whole “circular logging” discussion with Exchange. Since Exchange has a shared store, the transaction log for that shared DB grows exponentially faster than a transaction log on a single Domino user mailbox. Not only is the database itself shared, the transaction log is too and thus both have the same size challenges in terms of managability, file contention (number of users who have the file open), and size. While Domino administrators aren’t immune to concerning themselves with this stuff, its certainly not a typical area of worry.
Hi Ed,
So are you saying that if someone has a very large Notes application they’re not going to face isses around size, managability and file contention ?
And that people shouldn’t use relational databases for LOB applications because of size, contention and managability ?
Just interested to get your thoughts on that ?
Personally I think whichever storage method you go for (single instance or not) it’s all down to people, process and technology. Get any one of those wrong and no matter which system you use then you may have problems. The technologies of both systems are improving over time and they’re both reliable.
Just my opinion.
“Many companies have found that their employee’s Lotus Notes mail files continue to grow, and are looking for advice in controlling the performance costs associated with these larger mail files.”
If it’s not a typical area of worry why are MANY companies looking for advice at controlling the performance costs ?
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/library/notes-mail-files/index.html
Management of mail file storage affects everyone (Lotus Notes or Exchange). It’s more constructive to come up with a solution than to say it’s just not a problem.
Denying it’s an issue for Domino admins (or not a major concern) is, well, in my opinion like putting your head in the sand.
It is an issue, and it’s enough of an issue for Dave Johnson and Joseph Peterson to write a set of best practices about it.
And fair play to them for coming up with a solution rather than denying the problem exists or that it’s not a typical area of worry.
“worry” vs. “consideration” are very different words. I like the developerWorks article — since it shows that mailboxes in the 500MB to 1000MB range are common. Siemens is looking forward to Exchange 12 because they might actually be able to raise mailbox quotas to 100 megabytes — whoo-hoo!
This continues to be an area where I see huge differences in the real-world practice of Exchange customers vs. Domino customers.
Ed,
100Mb mailboxes are the standard in Microsoft. You make it seem an exception.
Siemens has how many users ? Diskquota may have other considerations than MS Exchange’ ability to support is my guess.
100 MB is indeed an exception. IBMers have a standard mailbox size from 200 MB (Europe) to 600 MB (US) and in some cases have 1 GB or more. I think this is a good thing — not because people should be encouraged to keep things forever, but because the time and money spent trying to maintain mailbox size is very expensive. In some ways, I think it’s probably the biggest contributor to messaging TCO — always has been, since I was a cc:Mail administrator 12+ years ago.
Oops standard mailboxsize is actually 200Mb.
Here’s an article on Microsoft’s internal Exchange environment :
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/msit/consolidation/ex2003siteconwp.mspx
There are many communities with much larger mailboxes depending on business need, but I guess this discussion is not a matter of my mailboxsize is is bigger than yours.
I do agree with you that this could be a TCO driver, just as storage, the need for archiving / compliance are part of that same discussion.