Users away from the office: Outlook Anywhere. Automatically creates an offline copy of the mailbox for use anywhere and uses encrypted channels when communicating. Set it up globally using Group Policy (see MSKB961112).

Email limits & PST files: User education. Inform the users that there are limits on the mailboxes and why they are there BEFORE they come complaining. Alternatively, disk space is cheap, so it is almost unreasonable to impose mailbox limits nowadays. This will also negate the need to “archive to PST”, negating the need to back them up. However, storing a PST on a network drive would enable the server to back it up. Offline files can be used to maintain a locally cached copy if the registry is tweaked. Only once have I allowed PSTs within an organisation, due to pressure of the directors. Server performance should have been taken care of with capacity planning.

Searching in large mailboxes: A single user searching his/her own mailbox using Outlook will NOT consume server resources. Indeed, with Instant Search, results are just that – instant. An administrator searching across several mailboxes will consume server resources though. However, as the items are indexed in Exchange, the resources utilised in searching are not excessive and should be accounted for by proper capacity planning.

Deleted emails: Exchange retains copies of deleted emails for a period defined by the administrator. If the administrator is having to rely on backups to retrieve emails, then the retention policy is set incorrectly. Once again, capacity planning is the key.

So, if your administrator has planned and configured the system correctly and he/she is still run off his feet, then by all means investigate MailArchiver: it’s more cost-effective than employing a second administrator.