"Until we deployed Mimosa NearPoint, we relied on aggressive mailbox quotas and the use of PST files to reduce the dramatic increase in Exchange server storage …Mimosa NearPoint has provided a way to retain total control over all email data, and protect against significant data loss in the event of a disaster."
— Eric Ellerman, Network Manager, Dot Foods
Microsoft® Office Outlook Personal Store (PST) files create perhaps the most difficult challenges for an Exchange administrator. Users routinely offload email messages and attachments from the Exchange Server to local PST files to stay below mailbox quotas. However, storing valuable information in files widely distributed across employee desktops/laptops causes many problems. First, very few companies have a data protection strategy down to the desktop level, so storing email in PST files exposes a huge amount of company intellectual property to data loss resulting from hardware failure and lost—or stolen—laptops. Second, because of the widespread distribution of PST files, managing email contained in PST files for compliance and legal discovery can also be very costly.
The PST dilemma is how to manage these files in a manner that supports an organization’s need for retention and disposition, legal discovery, and compliance while keeping it accessible to end-users.
NearPoint PST File Management: Automated Archiving and Management
Mimosa NearPoint PST Archiving (for Microsoft® Exchange Server) performs automated archiving and management of .PST files. The PST Archiving application is an add-on option for Mimosa NearPoint that crawls the network and uploads .PST files into the NearPoint archive. The crawl process runs according to defined policies and schedules as defined by the administrator based on server resource lists. Once the .PST files are loaded into the NearPoint archive, all email data is indexed and easily accessed by end- users via Microsoft Outlook® or OWA. PST data can also be quickly searched by auditors for legal discovery.
Automated PST Archiving
The NearPoint PST Archiving application seamlessly integrates with NearPoint and provides total management of PST files. The PST archiving policies are created with the help of an intuitive wizard that walks the administrator step-by-step through the entire process. First, the administrator loads the target machine list from a Microsoft Excel file. After the machine list is loaded, a second wizard creates the PST archival policy. The PST archiving policy:
Features |
Benefit |
| Automatic crawl-based collection of PST files | Eliminates need for administrators to manually collect PST files from servers and desktops for archiving |
Optional deletion of PST files from Source Machine |
Supports a PST file elimination strategy benefiting storage optimization and capacity reduction, and reducing risks from IP leakage |
User-friendly access to PST data |
Allows intuitive, self-service access to all PST data to easily search archived messages via Outlook; no user training is required |
Global Search and Retrieval |
Users and auditors can search all PST message data quickly in a single pass. Unlike Exchange, which only searches individual PST files one at a time |
Intuitive PST folder display |
For users that rely on folders to see folder names and hierarchy contained in their PST files, NearPoint identically preserves their file structure in the archive |
Manual PST uploads |
Option to allow the upload process to be managed by end-users |
Integration with Retention and |
Applies fine-grain retention/disposition policies to PST content, giving finer granularity to enable owners to match specific business and legal needs for PST content |
All PST Message Data Stored in |
Stores all PST message data in NearPoint archive; no shortcuts or message stubs are placed in Exchange |
© 2010 Iron Mountain Company. All rights reserved. 
