Using Stores

The default storage group, named First Storage Group, is created during Exchange installation. Two stores are also created within that storage group :

• A public store named Public Folder Store ( servername ) . This store is made up of two databases, pub1.edb and pub1.stm, which are stored in the \Program Files\Exchsrvr \Mdbdata folder.

• A mailbox store named Mailbox Store (servername). This store is made up of two databases, priv1.edb and priv1.stm, which are also stored in the \Program Files \Exchsrvr\Mdbdata folder.

You can create up to three new stores in the First Storage Group (unless you first delete the default stores), and you can create new stores in other storage groups, as well. The process for creating a private store and a mailbox store is identical and, for the most part, so is the configuration of the two different types of stores. In the sections that follow, we cover the creation, configuration, and management of a new mailbox store. When configuring a public store, many of the properties you will configure and much of the management are identical. Some differences in the configuration, such as the replication of public folders, were discussed earlier in Chapter 6, ‚“Using Public Folders. ‚½

Creating a Store

Creating a new store is a straightforward process. You need only make sure that you are creating the store in a storage group with room for another store. Exercise 9.2 outlines the steps for creating a new mailbox store.

EXERCISE 9.2: Creating a New Mailbox Store

1. Click Start > Programs > Microsoft Exchange, and then select System Manager.

2. Expand the organization object, the Administrative Groups folder, the specific administrative group, and the server on which you want to add a store.

3. Right-click the storage group object in which you want to create the store and select the New Mailbox Store command from the context menu. This opens the property pages for the new store.

4. Type a name for the new mailbox store in the Name field of the General page and click OK. This creates the store using the default properties suggested by System Manager.

 

Configuring Store Properties

There are a number of property pages used to configure a mailbox store. You are given the chance to configure these pages when you first create the store and can change the properties later by right-clicking the store object and choosing Properties from the context menu. The following sections detail the parameters found on many of these property pages. For information on configuring the Policies and Security pages, see Chapter 10, ‚“Administration and Maintenance. ‚½

General Properties

A mailbox store ‚ s General page, shown in Figure 9.4, is used to configure the following properties:

• You can name the store during its creation. As with storage groups, you can change the name of a store after creation only if the organization is running in native mode.

• Every Exchange user must have a default public store that is used for public folder access. This does not limit access to only the chosen public store but rather provides an entry point ‚ the first place the client will look for public folder content. Click the Browse button to open a list of available public stores from which to choose.

• The Offline Address List field specifies the default offline address list that users of this mailbox store will download when synchronizing the Offline Address List on their client. Like the public folder setting, this is simply a default value and does not prevent other available offline address lists from being used.

• You have the option to Archive All Messages Sent Or Received By Mailboxes On This Store to a public folder. While this does increase the use of server resources and possibly increase network traffic, it also provides a way of logging e-mail sent in your organization ‚ something your lawyers will love and your users will hate.

• Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME) is a secure version of the MIME protocol that supports encryption of messages. It is expected that S/MIME will be widely implemented, which will make it possible for people to send secure e-mail messages to one another, even if they are using different e-mail clients .

• The final option, Display Plain Text Messages In A Fixed- Size Font, displays all messages sent using plain text in the 10-pt. Courier font, which makes reading many e-mail clients a bit easier.

  
  Figure 9.4: General properties of a mailbox store

Database Properties

The mailbox store ‚ s Database page, shown in Figure 9.5, has controls that govern how Exchange handles the databases for the store. You can change the location and name of both the rich-text database and the streaming file database. One caveat, though: In order to move a database, you must be running System Manager on the server that holds the database you want to move.

Figure 9.5: Database properties of a mailbox store

You can also use the Database page to specify the times at which you want the automatic store maintenance routines to run. Select from several preset values using the drop-down list, or click Customize to bring up a calendar-style interface. Finally, you can set options for whether to mount the store when the Exchange server starts up (if it doesn ‚ t, you ‚ ll have to do it manually) and whether the store can be overwritten during a restore from backup. Check out Chapter 14, ‚“Backup and Recovery, ‚½ for more on backup and recovery.

Limits Properties

The Limits page, shown in Figure 9.6, should look familiar to you. It is used to configure the same types of limits that you can set on individual mailboxes, as discussed in Chapter 5, ‚“Creating and Managing Recipients. ‚½ At the mailbox level, you can set values that override any values you configure on this page, or you can elect to use the store defaults.

Figure 9.6: Limits properties of a mailbox store

This page lets you set two parameters: storage limits and deletion settings. Storage limits refer to the limits (in kilobytes) placed on the size that mailboxes in the store can grow to and what happens when that limit is crossed. By default, no limits are set. You can set limits for when a warning is issued, when sending is prohibited, and when sending and receiving are prohibited . You can also configure the interval at which the Information Store checks these values and issues warnings.

Deletion settings refer to how long (in days) deleted items in a mailbox and deleted mailboxes are retained on a server after a user or administrator deletes them. You can also configure the store to keep deleted items and mailboxes until the store has been backed up, regardless of the actual values entered.

Full-Text Indexing Properties

The Full-Text Indexing page, shown in Figure 9.7, is unavailable for configuration until you create a full-text index on the store. We will examine full-text indexing later in this chapter.

Figure 9.7: Full-text indexing properties of a mailbox store