Enterprise Vault™ Configuring Internal and External WebApp URLs for OWA
- Configuring Internal and External WebApp URLs for OWA
- Overview
- How to define the external URL for Enterprise Vault
- Determining when to use the external URL for Enterprise Vault
- Load balancing
- Fault tolerance
- Customized shortcut links
- OWA configuration examples
How to define the external URL for Enterprise Vault
You define an external URL for Enterprise Vault in the Exchange desktop policy setting "External Web Application URL", which is in the advanced OWA list of settings. The policy can then be assigned to Provisioning Groups to enable groups of users to access Enterprise Vault servers from their OWA clients using the external URLs.
The value of the external URL setting can be either a fully qualified URL to the Web Access application virtual directory, or a relative URL. An example of a fully qualified URL is:
http://evserver1.external.name/enterprisevault
An example of a relative URL is:
/enterprisevault
If a relative URL is specified, the fully qualified URL is constructed using the external host name of the Exchange Server used for OWA. This name is configured on the Exchange Server. An optional <https> component can be specified at the start of the relative URL to indicate that the HTTPS protocol should be used. If it is not present, then the HTTP protocol is used.
Table: Defining the external URL that will be used to access Enterprise Vault gives examples of the URL that is used.
Table: Defining the external URL that will be used to access Enterprise Vault
URL used for OWA | Value set for External Web Application URL | External URL used for Enterprise Vault |
|---|---|---|
https://owa.company.com/owa | http://ev.company.com/enterprisevault | http://ev.company.com/enterprisevault |
https://owa.company.com/owa | /enterprisevault | http://owa.company.com/enterprisevault |
https://owa.company.com/owa | <https>/enterprisevault | https://owa.company.com/enterprisevault |
https://owa.company.com/owa | :8080/enterprisevault | http://owa.company.com:8080/enterprisevault |
The default value of the "External Web Application URL" policy setting is:
<https>/EnterpriseVault
The Enterprise Vault policy setting can be overridden by a configuration setting on the Exchange Server. See Table: URL setting on Exchange Server. This allows for load balancing, such that different Exchange CAS servers can use different URLs, and therefore access different Enterprise Vault servers.
On Exchange Server 2003, the setting is added to the EVBackEnd.ini file on the back-end Exchange Server 2003 computer. On Exchange Server 2007 and 2010, it is added to the Web.Config file on the Exchange CAS. In Web.Config, "<https>/EnterpriseVault" should be added as "<https>/EnterpriseVault".
The setting is read when the user logs into OWA, so a change to the value takes effect when the user next logs into OWA.
Table: URL setting on Exchange Server
Setting name in Exchange Server 2007 and 2010 | Setting name in Exchange Server 2003 | Description |
|---|---|---|
EnterpriseVault_ExternalWebAppUrl | ExternalWebAppUrl | Defines the external URL for Enterprise Vault access, and follows the same rules as the policy setting described above. |
The Exchange Server 2003 setting is configured at virtual directory level, so that it is possible to use different settings for different OWA virtual directories. In EVBackEnd.ini the setting can be qualified as follows:
server name.website ID.exchange virt dir name.ExternalWebAppUrl=value
For example:
Exch01.1.exchange.ExternalWebAppUrl=/enterprisevault