Easy there David, I think you’re overlooking some pretty critical issues here.
1. The Online Nightly Maintenance certainly does SOME defragmentation internally and makes available some areas to be overwritten with new incoming data if all the moons are aligned properly, but it does not reduce the physical database size or optimizes indexes etc. 2. So if you have a database that is physically 100GB and yet it only contains say 60GB of actual data what does that tell you? This also means that you are unnecessarily backing up 40GB conversely if you do a restore it’s a 100GB restore rather than 60GB 3. NOTE: Archiving firms tell clients that they will reduce database size and increase optimization by moving data out of the db and into the archive. Its only after implementation that they tell clients oh yeah well to get the db smaller and optimized you have to run ESEutil /D to get actually reduce the physical db size. 4. NOTE2: Defragmentation alone is not the answer to database optimization, nor was it the answer to this client’s issue. As a matter of fact simply running ESEutil /d on its own repeatedly is a sure way to damage or kill your database. 5. NOTE3: Lucid8 has partnered with the leaders in Exchange Archiving systems such as Symantec, Zantaz and others in order to provide their clients with an automated maintenance and optimization solution for Exchange. 6. GOexchange delivers much more then defragmentation, i.e. it provides db maintenance defragmentation and optimization If you still think it’s possible to achieve these results by simply letting Exchange run and run, then go try it and you will soon learn the truth. Better yet, I challenge you to run our product in DEMO mode on a live Exchange server that’s been running for some time and hasn’t had any type of manual maintenance run, see what the results are and then talk to us. DC ------ Responded to on 2008-01-23 11:43:00 by <David Lum>---- I have found this to be an interesting thread. Chasing down some of the quoted testimonials, I Googled “Steve McHargue Chief Information Officer Jackson Walker LLP” , which led me to an InformationWeek article which pretty much is another GOexchange and gives more details about the “issues” they were having. http://www.informationweek.com/software/messaging/166403975 “Jackson Walker had been using Veritas’ KVS product for archiving, but while KVS had extracted over 200 gigabytes of data from the Exchange Server, the databases themselves were not getting any smaller, and the number of errors and warnings were growing along with the time it took to backup and restore.” NO SH!T! They don’t get smaller unless you do an online defrag. Dave Lum - Systems Engineer [EMAIL PROTECTED] - (971)-222-1025 "When you step on the brakes your life is in your foot's hands" From: Tom Strader [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 6:54 AM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: GOexchange Response It's looking more like that's the consensus Rene'. Thanks for your time to look and respond. Tom ________________________________________ From: René de Haas [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 8:30 AM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: GoExchange Response Had a little look at their website and I agree don’t see much value added either.The thing that puzzles me with the comment below from a satisfied customer, how does doing offline defrags help you with achieving a high uptime since you need to stop services to run it? “Uptime and Availability: "After just one use of GOexchange, our information stores were reduced by 45-50% with thousands of errors, warnings, and inconsistencies corrected. Without GOexchange we would be unable to provide the current level of 99.999% uptime and availability to our customers."” Think I only needed to run it once and I’ve worked with exchange since version 5.5. Also they mention defragging the db. Doesn’t exchange do that by itself??? Unless they mean an offline defrag which MS even says only if necessary. From: Michael B. Smith [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 8:13 PM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: GoExchange Response If Dane Cue would like to join this forum (or another that is not vendor controlled) I’ll be happy to discuss each and every point. Otherwise, why bother? I’ve seen much of the material in that response before. I think a number of other MVPs would agree. He can call me “crazy” or “out in left field” or whatever he wants. And I can do the same. In most of this, he says the same thing that I and others said – just using different word that spin the answer differently. Several times he asserts that I mean something that I did not say. >From an insurance perspective – I absolutely agree – good backups are >important. I don’t know what other value-add they truly provide, other than >disaster recovery. I can provide documentation to back up my statements. I can provide a quote from one of the key developers for ESE that says you don’t do these things on a regular basis. To wit: …I'm glad you'd never recommend a tool that would recommend offline defrag as standard maintenance! :) I generally don't recommend regular offline defrags myself, believing if that becomes necessary it is an issue that should be fixed in ESE or whatever app (Exch/AD) is using ESE. Lucid8 has a vested interest in selling their product. I respect that. They do provide some value-add with reporting. But that is all that I see. And I don’t approve of their marketing. I personally think that it is misleading. Regards, Michael B. Smith MCSE/Exchange MVP http://TheEssentialExchange.com From: Tom Strader [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 12:48 PM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: GoExchange Response List, I have a response from Lucid8 concerning their GoExchange product and the questions that were posted a week or so back. I've tried to post the response here but the Lyris server says its too large so if anyone want to read their response, please email me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] and I'll forward it to you. It is in DOCX format. Sincerely, Tom Strader Server Systems Administrator NC Blumenthal Performing Arts Center 704.379.1285 Office | 704.444.2098 Fax http://www.linkedin.com/in/tstrader "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems." ________________________________________ *** The information in this e-mail is confidential and intended solely for the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you have received this e-mail in error please notify the sender by return e-mail delete this e-mail and refrain from any disclosure or action based on the information. *** ~ Ninja Email Security with Cloudmark Spam Engine Gets Image Spam ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Ninja ~