First, what is stubbing?

The removal of a GroupWise item from the GroupWise message store that is then placed into a third party database, leaving a "stub" that appears to be the message in the GroupWise Windows Client.

The concept was developed for Microsoft because their databases were growing too large in Exchange and they need to get them smaller. Stubbing was created to move content out of the Exchange message store into something else.

The problem is now that stubbing has been out there for awhile, problems are appearing. And Microsoft is now recommending AGAINST Stubbing.

Here is a link to the Microsoft advisory:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc671168(EXCHG.80).aspx

One of the big reasons against stubbing, especially in GroupWise, is that the decision is irrevocable and you can only access the message via the Windows client once it has become stubbed.

This is a big enough issue that IT managers should hesitate before stubbing important emails that may need to be access via a Web client, BlackBerry, Mac, or Linux client.