Test data Management best practices

When to Ingest

Ingesting historical data ensures that your archive has a complete record of email transactions for users. Certain components must be in place before Legacy Archive Data Management can take place, and Mimecast recommends completing your Legacy Archive Data Management after the Connect process has been completed.

Planning your Legacy Archive Data Management

Before you can import data to Mimecast, you need to extract it from your organization's infrastructure. Planning on gathering the data is an important step, and Mimecast recommends that you review the Prerequisites before embarking on your Legacy Archive Data Management journey. The following questions should also be reviewed:

What data should be imported?

Depending on your organization's needs, it may not be necessary to provide all the historical email data from within your infrastructure. Consider:

• How far back do you need to import from?
• Will you be importing email data for all users, or a subset of users?

Where is the data stored?

The systems containing the data you wish to import have different challenges with exporting and providing it in the accepted formats, and can cause delays with your collection process. Consider how you can export data from the following locations:

• Workstations, e.g. PSTs (historical or current)
• Servers, e.g. Exchange (single or multiple sites)
• Offline backup media, e.g. tapes, external drives
• Online environments, e.g. Hosted Exchange or other SaaS solutions
• On-premise or Cloud based security, stubbing or archive solutions, e.g. Microsoft Forefront, Zantaz EAS, Autonomy EAS, Symantec Enterprise Vault, Near Point Mimosa, Postini, Barracuda, Mail Marshall, MX Logic, Dell Message One, Message Labs, CommVault, Arcmail Defender

Cut-off Date

In order to ensure that you have a complete email history in your Mimecast Archive, you must establish the Cut-off Date. This date is typically based on your email routing through Mimecast for Inbound, Outbound and Internal emails, and is usually established in the Connect process. If this date is not assessed correctly, there may be a data gap in your archive, or in certain circumstances, you may have email duplicates in you archive.

Example

You configure your routing through Mimecast as follows:

The Cut-off Date is therefore the 2nd March 2013. Any data prior to this date should be collected for import, as all data from this date onwards will be archived by Mimecast.

Preparing your data

Legacy Archive Data Management delays are mostly experienced when there is difficulty in extracting data from the organization's infrastructure. Simple third-party or native tools are available to assist with data extraction, and these largely depend on the infrastructure. For more information, view the FAQs. Complex environments, such as Hosted Exchange, Office 365, and Google Apps may require intervention from your Service Provider or Partner.