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Have you ever tried to implement mailbox quotas in an Exchange organization? If so, you know you have to apply them separately to each individual Information Store. Unfortunately, this limitation doesn't just apply to mailbox quotas. Most policies in Exchange have to be applied individually at the mailbox store, public folder store or server level.
This isn't a big deal for smaller companies. (After all, what does it matter if mailbox quotas have to be applied individually to each Information Store if you've only got one Information Store?) But it can create an unnecessary burden for Exchange administrators at larger companies.
An enterprise-grade Exchange organization can contain dozens of servers with up to 20 different stores on each. If you are an administrator in an organization of that size, do you really want to have to apply policies individually to every single store?
Not only does creating the policies become tedious work, there is a good chance that a store might be accidentally skipped. Furthermore, as your company's security needs change, you might find yourself having to go back and make frequent changes to the policies you worked so hard to create.
Fortunately, there is a better way.
Exchange allows you to create system policies. System policies are similar to recipient policies, except that a system policy can apply to mailbox stores, public folder stores o
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r to servers.
Let's suppose, for example, you want to implement mailbox quotas across your entire organization. Rather than assigning the mailbox quotas to each mailbox store individually, you could create a system policy that would contain the quotas, and then assign the system policy to the necessary storage groups.
Yes, it is almost as much work to assign the mailbox stores to the new system policy as it would be to just apply the mailbox quotas directly to the mailbox stores. However, once you have associated your mailbox stores with a system policy, you don't have to do it ever again (unless you want to add or remove a store).
So although the initial setup is time-consuming, maintenance is a breeze. If you ever want to modify the quota limit or add other restrictions to the policy, you can do it in one place rather than having to apply it individually to each store.
How to create a system policy:
In case you are wondering, it is possible to add a mailbox store to multiple system policies. If a conflict results, Exchange will inform you that one of the policies overrides the other.
About the author: Brien M. Posey, MCSE, is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with Windows 2000 Server and IIS. Brien has served as CIO for a nationwide chain of hospitals and was once in charge of IT security for Fort Knox. As a freelance technical writer he has written for Microsoft, TechTarget, CNET, ZDNet, MSD2D, Relevant Technologies and other technology companies. You can visit Brien's personal Web site at http://www.brienposey.com.
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