Veritas Alta Archiving PST Ingestion Guidelines

Description

Veritas Alta Archiving can ingest PST files from an Exchange environment or existing archiving platform. This document outlines the best practices for PST extraction / ingestion methods ensuring expedient and proper handling of your ingestion case.

Extraction Guidelines:

• All data must be accompanied with a Chain of Custody form.
• PST file names should not contain commas, special or double byte characters.
• PST files need to be 20GB or less in size.
• PST files cannot be password protected.
• We recommend creating one PST per user with the users email address (i.e.: john@yourcompany.com.pst)
• If the user has more than one PST, add an underscore and the PST number at the end of the user’s email address (i.e.: john@yourcompany.com_1.pst)
• Run scanpst.exe, a utility included with Microsoft® Outlook, to determine if your PST files are corrupt before sending the data to ensure ingestion of the PST’s into the archive.

Physical Media Guidelines:

• USB - All USB storage devices are supported (Hard Drive, Flash Drive, etc.). USB 2.0 and 3.0 are supported, but USB 3.0 is recommended.
• NAS - NAS devices are also supported. The login credential and instructions must be provided.

Encryption Guidelines:

• Supported – Microsoft Windows Bitlocker encryption is supported.
• Partially Supported - These other encryption types may be supported, but not recommended (Truecrypt, VeraCrypt, password protected Zips).
• Discouraged – All 3rd party auto-launched .exe encryption software that comes with the USB hard drive are discouraged and may cause delays in your ingestion or require resending the data with the supported encryption types.

CSV Mapping File Guidelines:

• CSV mapping file is required to correctly map PST files to appropriate mailbox in the archive.
• CSV mapping file is required for maintaining Outlook Folder Structure in the archive.
• PST files extracted with multiple user’s emails are suggested to be processed without a csv mapping.
• PST files imported without a CSV mapping file will result in the following:
  • Messages will rely on sender/recipient and the parser will archive the messages to the appropriate mailbox in the archive.
  • Merging PST Files - PST files with the same name in different folders or from different ingestions, will be merged into one PST file in the archive.

CSV Mapping Options:

• Standard csv Mapping - Emails can be mapped into a user’s mailbox, regardless of the sender and/or recipient(s) information in an email. Standard csv mapping will also parse the sender and recipients and place the emails in the matching mailboxes, I addition to the mailbox the PST is mapped to. Also, deduplication will match against all emails in the client’s instance.
• Force Mapping csv Mapping (This is not common) - We can import emails into only the mailbox specified in the csv mapping file using the “Force Mapping” option. This option is useful, when clients have re-used SMTP addresses and they do not want a previous different user’s emails archived in the current user’s mailbox. However, if emails are import with this option, emails will only be deduplicated against other emails in the mailbox the PST is mapped to and not the entire archive. This is the main reason that we discourage using this option because a lot of duplicate emails will be archived, if a lot of emails have multiple recipients.
• Folder Structure - Folder Structure can be imported from a PST file into a mailbox as a csv mapping option. See the importing with folder structure section for more details.

Ingestion Expectations:

• There is a 200 MB message size limit for messages that are ingested from PST files or EML files. Any oversized messages will not be imported. A report will be provided for any message that exceeds these limits. 
• Non mail items such as drafts, tasks and calendar entries will not be imported (read receipts and calendar notice acceptances will).
• Veritas Alta Archiving utilizes single instance storage. Our de-duplication logic will not import messages that meet the following criteria:
  • Identical Sender, Recipients, Subject, and Date/Time
  • Optional criteria - Identical MessageID can be included as part of the deduplication logic, upon request.
• Ingestion reports detailing total ingested and failed messages will be provided upon completion of ingestion case. Detailed exception reports are available upon request.
• Missing SMTP Addresses – With PST ingestions, frequently emails will not have SMTP email addresses in the email and only common names. If Veritas Alta Archiving does not have an SMTP email address to locate a user’s mailbox, it will attempt to locate the user’s mailbox by matching the common name with the user’s name on the mailbox.
• Reusing SMTP Addresses and Common Names – When SMTP Addresses and Common Names are reused, there is a possibility that legacy emails that match these will archive in a current user’s mailbox, even if they are from a different user. If SMTP Addresses and/or Common Names were reused, please let us know.
  • Corrupt PST Files –We will not repair corrupt PST files. Replacement files will be required for all corrupt PST files.