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Backing up Exchange in 2003 SBS

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Merlin4us

MIS
Mar 17, 2004
44
US
I backup the Exchange mailboxes. Do I need to back up the Information Store? What information is in this directory?

Thanks for your input!
 
It depends how you back them up, are you using a program like Veritas Backup Exec or Computer Associates Brighstore ArcServ Backup?

We use CA ArcServ and have had to purchase the Premium Exchange plugin, as this allows for brick level backup, which means you backup and restore down to email level rather than mailbox or store level (although we also backup @ mailbox level & store level) well we do have a 200GB LTO tape streamer.

I beleive to properly backup exchange you require backup software, just copying the store say to a CD and then dumping it back to restore is likely to fail and corrupt your store.

"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you.
 
So you already have brick level capabilities, have you spoken with Veritas and confirmed that their brick level backup is enough to restore the whole Exchange Store, should you be in a disaster recovery situation.

If you have plenty of room on the backup media or enough tapes with a loader then back it up anyway, as I said I do Store level, mailbox level & brick level, better safe than sorry when it comes to backing up your data, we also have all our email remotely stored via a 3rd party into a special off site archive, just to be sure!

"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you.
 
Exchange itself will modify the Windows backup utility to do Store level backup. Useful for disaster recovery but nearly useless if you need to recover individual emails.

Most vendors build an SBS specific version of their program that includes the extra agents required to get a Brick Level Exchange backup or an online SQL backup.

My knowledge is with Veritas, but they do have an SBS version that includes the extra agents. Since you already have version 10, this doesn't do you much good, but you might try contacting your reseller, or Veritas directly, to see if they'll credit you your existing version towards an upgrade to the SBS version.
 
Veritas v10.0 is for SBS. I have the options of backing up individual e-mails and/or the information store. I have about 6 gigs of e-mail. When I back up both options I end up with about 12 gigs. I was wondering what additional information was in the information store.
 
The Information Store grabs the entire mail database as a single unit. It provides a basic level of coverage, as you would also need to restore the entire mail database as a unit if all you have is the Information Store backup. You cannot pull individual mailboxes/items of mail out of an Information Store backup during the restore process itself.

The Brick Level/Mailbox backup, allows you to restore down to an individual mail item if that's what you need. With a 6GB IS, it will double the size to also do a brick level backup.
 
Exactly dkediger, to do a disaster recovery after a system crash, you would simply restore using the exchange store backup, however if a user has deleted an email they require, with only an exchange store you could not restore the lost email, even mailbox level will not give you this option, as restoring a mailbox could overwrite and lose any email received since the backup.

To fully have control over exchange backup and restore, get all the plugins and do the lot!

"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you.
 
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