System and method for archiving objects in an information store

1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions, which when executed by at least one data processing device performs a method for restoring archived data, the method comprising:

selecting an indicator, or receiving selection of the indicator, wherein the indictor is associated with a data item,

wherein the data item is stored in a secondary storage device,

wherein the indicator is stored in a primary storage device,

wherein the primary and secondary storage devices are coupled via a network, and

wherein the indicator includes information identifying the data item;

based on the selected indicator, accessing the data item from the secondary storage device;

copying the data item to the primary storage device; and

removing, from the primary storage device, the indicator associated with the copied data item.

2. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 ,

wherein selecting the indicator includes selecting the indicator associated with the data item in response to a manual user input,

wherein the indicator is not modifiable by the user,

wherein selecting the indicator includes accessing a Universal Naming Convention (UNC) link included in the indicator, and

wherein accessing the UNC link includes parsing a tag or other parsable identifier encoded within the indicator.

3. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 ,

wherein selecting the indicator includes selecting the indicator associated with the data item in response to a manual user input, and,

wherein selecting the indicator includes accessing a Universal Naming Convention (UNC) link included in the indicator.

4. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein selecting the indicator includes selecting a data object having a same data structure as the data item.

5. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein selecting the indicator includes selecting an electronic mail message having a new message body that replaces a message body included within the data item, wherein the new message body is a subset of the message body of the data item.

6. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 ,

wherein the information identifying the data item includes an identifying path to the data item in the secondary storage device, and

wherein accessing the data item from the secondary storage device includes accessing at least one of an electronic message and an attachment to the electronic message via the identifying path.

7. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein selecting the indicator includes selecting an electronic mail message having a header field of the data item, wherein the header field includes at least two of a sender field, a recipient field, a subject field, a time field, and a date field.

8. One or more tangible computer-readable memories storing computer-executable instructions to perform a method for moving data items between servers, comprising:

extracting at least first data items stored in a secondary storage device,

wherein the secondary storage device is associated with a first server;

transferring the extracted data items to a primary storage device associated with the first server,

wherein indicators associated with the data items stored in the secondary storage device are stored in the primary storage device,

wherein the indicators include information associated with the data items, and

wherein the primary and secondary storage devices are coupled via a network;

deleting the indicators from the primary storage device associated with the first server; and

at a time after the transferring and the deleting, moving the data items from the primary storage device associated with the first server to a primary storage device associated with a second server.

9. The one or more tangible computer-readable memories of claim 8 , further comprising:

copying the data items from the primary storage device associated with the secondary server to the secondary storage device of the second server; and

wherein copying the data items from the primary storage device associated with the second server to the secondary storage device includes storing directory services entries in separate files that adhere to an LDIF (LDAP Data Interchange Format) format.

10. The one or more tangible computer-readable memories of claim 8 wherein the data items are electronic mail messages for an electronic mail box for a user and wherein the transferring is done based on an age-based storage policy.

11. The one or more tangible computer-readable memories of claim 8 , further comprising

copying the data items from the primary storage device associated with the second server to the secondary storage device occurs in response to directory services entries satisfying one or more retention criteria,

wherein the retention criteria constitute a defined branch of a directory tree, one or more defined directory services entries, or one or more defined attributes of the directory services entries.

12. The one or more tangible computer-readable memories of claim 8 , further comprising:

copying the data items from the primary storage device associated with the second server to a secondary storage device of the second server; and

creating in the primary storage device associated with the second server further indicators that include information associated with the data items in the secondary storage device of the second server,

wherein copying the data items includes copying directory services entries to the secondary storage device of the second server, wherein attributes and properties of the directory services entries are included in the further indicators stored in the primary storage device associated with the second server.

13. A computer-readable storage medium storing processor-implementable instructions for retrieving a portion of an original electronic mail message, wherein the portion is archived in secondary storage, comprising:

displaying a graphical user interface of an electronic mail message stub stored in a primary storage device,

wherein the stub has replaced at least the portion of the original electronic mail message in the primary storage device, and,

wherein the graphical user interface displays:

header fields of the original electronic mail message, including at least two of sender, recipient, subject, time, and date fields of the original electronic mail message;

an indication that the portion of the original electronic mail message has been archived; and,

a link to the portion of the original electronic mail message that is archived, wherein the link comprises an identifier to the portion in secondary storage; and,

restoring the portion of the original electronic mail message from the secondary storage device to the primary storage device in response to a user selecting the link.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the portion of the original electronic mail message is an attachment to the original electronic mail message.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the link is a Universal Naming Convention path that cannot be modified by a user.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the graphical user interface is displayed in response to a user locating the electronic mail message stub via a full-text search function provided by an electronic mail server.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the graphical user interface is displayed in response to a user selecting the electronic mail message stub from a backup system console browser.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 ,

wherein the primary storage device is browsable, and

wherein the graphical user interface is displayed in response to a user manually selecting the electronic mail message stub from the browsable primary storage device.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the primary storage device and the secondary storage are coupled via a network.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein restoring the portion of the original electronic mail message further comprises:

accessing the portion of the original electronic mail message from secondary storage via the identifier;

copying the portion of the original electronic mail message to the primary storage device; and,

removing, from the primary storage device, the link to the portion of the original electronic mail message.