The Enterprise Vault Directory has a Directory Service that the other Enterprise Vault services and tasks use to access the configuration information for their site. The Directory Service uses Microsoft SQL Server to access the configuration information in the Enterprise Vault Directory database.

Figure: Accessing the Enterprise Vault Directory database illustrates what happens when an Exchange Mailbox Archiving task archives an item.

The Exchange Mailbox Archiving task requires information such as the location of the archive, permissions on the archive and the Indexing Service to contact, and instructs the Directory Service to retrieve this information from the Enterprise Vault Directory database. (The task also updates information in the Vault Store database.)

One Directory Service can provide access to configuration information for one or more Enterprise Vault sites. Because of this, the Directory Service is considered to be outside the Enterprise Vault site rather than a part of it.

The Directory Service is a Windows Service and is listed in the Windows Services Management Console. There is no requirement for the Directory Service to be on the same computer as its database.

A single computer can never run more than one Directory Service.