Архитектура

Интеграция с почтовыми сервисами

Сервер Архива архивирует почту из внешних почтовых систем таких как Microsoft Exchange, Postfix, Sendmail и других. Также Архива может принимать почтовых трафик по протоколам SMTP или Sendmail milter, или может забирать по протоколам IMAP или POP. Сервер Архива может быть запущен на любом сервере в вашей локальной сети который имеет соединение TCP/IP с почтовым сервером, почту которого вы собираетесь архивировать. Для оптимальной производительности и минимизации изменений на почтовом сервере рекомендуется запускать сервис Архива на выделенном сервере или виртуальной машине.

Web Console

In addition to archiving e-mails, the server provides a web interface that is used to administer the product. This interface, referred to as the “Server Console”, also provides the capability for users to search and retrieve e-mails. Unlike traditional mail clients, Архива's search function allows users with sufficient privileges to search across all emails in an entire company, not just a single mailbox.

Authentication

Access to the server console is restricted to authenticated users only. An authenticated user may assume an administrator, auditor, user or custom-defined role. Each of these roles implies a different set of entitlements, which are discussed in Logins. For simplicity’s sake, the server may be configured to authenticate users using credentials contained in a simple XML configuration file (Basic Authentication).

Alternatively, the server may be setup to authenticate users using Microsoft Active Directory (Active Directory Authentication) or using basic LDAP authentication. The benefit of authenticating with Active Directory or an LDAP server is that user accounts can be managed centrally using standard administration tools.

Archiving Process

Emails are typically received via Архива's inbuilt SMTP, IMAP or milter interfaces. When data is received it is immediately written to the Receive Queue. Once data is written to the Receive Queue, the data is considered safe. Meaning, if the server is rebooted, Архива will continue processing the remaining items on the queue.

A series of archiving threads retrieve items from the Receive Queue, generate a unique ID for each document, and store data in the active volume. Depending on the unique ID of the document, the document is stored in one of 4096 AES encrypted archive files. By dispersing data across multiple archive files, Архива is able to achieve higher performance through parallel writes.

Once data has been written to the volume, it is sent to the indexer. The indexer parses the contents of the documents and indexes all their fields. The search index generated by the indexer is subsequently used to provide high-speed search functionality.

Storage Scheme

Архива stores archived data in logical volumes that can be rolled periodically (e.g. monthly or otherwise). Within each volume store directory, data is dispersed evenly across 4096 RAES encrypted ZIP files (with .zz extension). Inside each zip, an archived document consists of a .eml file and a .nfo file. This storage scheme is deliberately designed to attain the following goals (1) volumes do not contain files that are not so large that popular backup products cannot back them up (2) volumes do not contain files that are so plentiful that backup's take too long time to complete  (3) volume contain just the right amount of files that make them easy to copy and move around (4) use of standard driven formats enabling volume data to be accessed 50 years later (5) very high compression to reduce storage costs (6) writes to multiple files simultaneously for improved archiving performance.

Communication Ports

* by default, these ports can be changed

Performance
 

The performance of Архива is largely dependent on the performance characteristics of the hardware environment within which it runs. When planning your hardware configuration it is important to consider factors such as motherboard/chip architecture, CPU speed, number of cores, amount of memory, Ethernet speed, and storage configuration. In larger sites, the server may require more CPU power and larger amounts of memory.

Ethernet

 Considering the large volume of traffic that will be passing between your mail server and Архива, it is a good idea (especially in larger sites) to install a 1 GB or higher Ethernet link between them. This is especially important if you plan on connecting Архива to an Ethernet based networked storage device since the same pipe may be used for both the retrieval and storage of emails.

Storage

The choice of storage hardware and configuration varies greatly depending on the volume of emails the archiving server is expected to handle. In small environments (0-100 mailboxes), two in built SATA drives organized in a RAID configuration is often sufficient. At larger sites, since high speed searching across the large indexes requires low latency disk access times, it is advisable to keep the search engine index and email archive store information on separate drives.

While, Архива is capable of, and is indeed optimized for, archiving to remote Network Attached Storage (NAS) Devices, it is never a good idea to store the index data remotely as this will adversely affect the performance of searches. In addition to archiving to NAS devices, enterprise level customers can comfortably configure Архива to archive emails to Storage Area Networks (SAN).