OT: MS Exchange backups

[Raylund Lai]

Glenn Steen wrote:
> On 24/11/2007, Denis Beauchemin <Denis.Beauchemin at usherbrooke.ca> wrote:
>   
>> Glenn Steen a écrit :
>>     
>>> On 24/11/2007, Denis Beauchemin <Denis.Beauchemin at usherbrooke.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>>       
>>>> Gerry Doris a écrit :
>>>>
>>>>         
>>>>> shuttlebox wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>>>> On Nov 23, 2007 10:04 PM, Denis Beauchemin
>>>>>> <Denis.Beauchemin at usherbrooke.ca> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             
>>>>>>>>> Manager (TSM) and Backup Exec but couldn't backup our 250GB data
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>                   
>>>>>>> I'm not sure I understand your question...  it takes 48 hours to backup
>>>>>>> to disk!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Of course, we can't afford to stop Exchange to either backup or restore
>>>>>>> data.  Everything has to be done online...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>               
>>>>>> Something is very wrong. We use Legato Networker on Solaris and it
>>>>>> backs up many TB during the night including at least six Exchange
>>>>>> servers each with larger databases than yours. Of course we spread the
>>>>>> full backups so most servers only gets a diff or inc backup but still
>>>>>> the full backups never takes more than a few hours.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             
>>>>> We generally install either Legato or Veritas and backup many Exchange
>>>>> servers/TBs overnight.  Check to make sure that the servers are being
>>>>> kicked off at different times...don't try and start everyone at
>>>>> midnight!  250GB is nothing.
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>> I agree with all of you. It should not take so much time...  disks are
>>>> on a local raid5 box.  I think the time is spent extracting people's
>>>> mailboxes from the db and copying them to disk...  but still, it takes
>>>> way too long...
>>>>
>>>> How do you restore a single mailbox or some emails?  Do you have to
>>>> restore the hole db and then extract the relevant emails?  If so, it is
>>>> a waste of time and resources...  unless there isn't any other way...  I
>>>> think this is what they are trying to avoid but obviously it is not
>>>> working very well...
>>>>
>>>> Thanks!
>>>>
>>>> Denis
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> I'm not the Echange admin (thank god!), but IIRC what he does is that
>>> he effectively "doubles" the size of the backup by exporting all the
>>> mailboxes first.... And the echange module is supposed to facilitate
>>> this too, but ... this was easier:-):-).
>>> Our Exchange database seem to be the same saze (or slightly larger) as
>>> yours... Shouldn't be taing 48 hours:-).
>>>
>>> If you like, I can have a chat with him come monday, to get the gory details.
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>>       
>> Hi Glenn,
>>
>> Yes, please tell me more about your setup.
>>
>>     
> Ahm, as I said.... I'm not the "exchange guy":-). Just had a chat with
> him... Seems we only did the stupid export thing for a very short
> while before transitioning to Exchange 2k3.
> His emphatic advice is to only do an Information Store backup, and use
> a method (described "in some docs by M$", his words, not mine:-) where
> you work with a secondary (offline) database to do individual mailbox
> restore. Since we work with disk backup, this is lightning-fast. The
> secondary DB isn't large, and you purportedly don't restore the entire
> thing... And he further asserts that this didn't work with exchange
> prior to 2k3. And that's the sum of that:-). I imagine this is pretty
> much what everyone else have been telling you;-)
> (Sometimes that guy can be ... less than communicative:-/. Sorry for
> the poor detail.)
>
> Cheers
>   

Yes, he's right.  Especially when using ntbackup as it doesn't provide 
individual mailbox backup.

With Exchange agent that backup software provided, individual mailbox 
could be backup.  This is normally the setup of them.

To backup individual mailbox, care should be taken on the mailboxes.  I 
faced on some mailboxes that have corrupted emails inside.  These 
generated a lot of errors or warnings and timeout (BackupExec) .  So the 
backup logs should be read to see what is happening.

Cheers
Raylund
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