We’re looking for a tool that we can use that will combine multiple replicas of a users mail file and remove duplicates. Right now we’ve been replicating each local replica of the users mail file up to a replica copy on the server. This is tedious and is prone to error. If anyone knows of a tool that they’ve used to do this process it would be great? I’d love to be able to just point it at a folder that contains multiple replicas and have the tool go to work and combine them.
TIA,
Joy
Subject: Combining multiple local replicas
I don’t understand the question. Replication automatically combines multiple replicas and avoids duplicates (except in the case of replication conflicts).???
Subject: RE: Combining multiple local replicas
To explain a little better. We get some requests for litigation to restore all backups of a users mail file. This results in us having about 20 different local replicas of the mail file. We then need to combine them all into one database to provide to the lawyers for searching. Right now we’ve been doing a sort of manual process. Put one replica on the server, remove deletion stubs, replicate up one local replica, replicate up another replica and so on… This is a very tedious task and sometimes it seems that not all deletion stubs are being removed. We want to have some tool that perhaps could combine these together and remove duplicates.
Subject: RE: Combining multiple local replicas
Interesting. I have never heard of a requirement quite like that. All I can suggest is that you custom code a solution to meet the needs defined by the auditors/lawyers. The big question to answer is what do you do with a memo that gets changed along the way. Sometimes I keep a memo in my mailfile for months and edit it weekly to add new comments to it. If there were five backups during a certain period and a certain memo changes a three times, do you keep all versions or just the latest? They are all the same document, but they are not identical. Potentially you look at the date-last-modified and keep all of them, possibly saving a field noting the date. My current thought is that all unique copies of all docs would be copied to one master database for the auditors. You probably will need to add some custom views as well to avoid confusing the auditors.
Subject: Combining multiple local replicas
This doesn’t answer your question but…
Why do you have mulitple local replicas? Is there any way to change your user management practices so you don’t wind up with multiple replicas or, if you do, you’re always assured that the last one used has everything from the server which has everything from any/all local reps?