Backing Up Exchange Using GFS Rotation

[darrenmills]

Hi,
After experiencing numerous problems with arcserve over the last 4-5 months i have finally appeared to have cured what was a very unrealiable and unhealthy backup solution.I have a GFS scheme running which appears to be doing exactly as it should.I do a full back up on Friday with incrementals on Mon,Tues,Weds and Thursday.My question though is to do with my Exchange backup (which is part of the GFS scheme).For my Exchange backup i am using the backup agent for Exchange.I have selected both Information store and Bricklevel options.It seems by default the GFS Scheme will backup the Information store and the Brick Level fully on Friday and then backs up the brick level incrementally on the other days of the week.This sounds reasonable since as far as i am aware you can't back up the Information store Incrementally.So presumably if i had to restore my Exchange server i would restore the last information store backup then restore the incremental brick level backup's to bring the Exchange server up to date.

This would all be okay but for two reasons:

1.I have had problems with "restoring files to their original location's" option with the restore.It starts to restore then a Drwtsn message appears saying application error and refers to ASRUNJOB.EXE .There is a patch related to this problem on the CA website but it doesn't seem to have cured it.
To get around this problem though i uncheck the option to "restore to the original location" and actually browse to my Exchange server via network neighbourhood.I have tested this so far on my own mailbox on say my deleted items folder,and it works,but i actually select my mailbox as the restore destination.Does any one know if i had to restore ALL Exchange mailboxes would i put the "individual mailboxes" part of the tree as the destination and hopefully as Arcserve restore's the data it knows which mailbox to restore it to?

2.My other reason being against backing up the information store only once a week is that the transaction logs for Exchange build up over the week (3-4gb worth)and only get removed when an information store backup has completed.
I could obviously get around this problem by running a back up of the information store every night seperately to my GFS scheme,but would be better if i could some how include this in my GFS scheme which is a lot easier to maintain and administer.

Has anyone else had similair problem's?.Can anyone give me some advice on the best way to back up Exchange using the GFS scheme?

Thankyou for taking the time to read this.

Yours Hopefully

Darren

 

[logixman]

Are you sure you're not talking about my setup. You described it to a tee.

One thing I have found after doing hours of research is that when you restore something to a database (Oracle/SQL/Exchange) you should always use the Restore Wizard and not the Restore Manager. There are some post on this site and a document deep within CA that also reference this Restore process. For some reason Retore Manager simply doesn't work as expected. The Option guide says do not use the Wizard as it is not supported, but I have had much better luck with restores using the Wizard than I have using the manager.

As for the Log files and backups, make sure you check the settings on the Agent when you are setting up your backup job. You can do a Full, Incremental, and Differential backup of not only the databases as a whole, but also on the brick level as well. The restore is the same way. There are many options for both, though they may not be totally clear as to their function, if you have used the product for any length of time and you have a general understanding of Exchange you can figure it out.

Any of this help, maybe I am just "typing into the wind". My current backup removes the log files with every job (run nightly). I still accumulate over 4GB of log files between that time, which I am not real at ease with, but unless, as you stated, I want to run a seperate job throughout the day I really have no other choice with incremental backups.

 

[wjense]

I restore the Brick level, and am currently in a DR mode. And I use restore manager, not the wizard, restore via session. NO you can't just say individual mail boxes, you must point to a mailbox, either a newly created one, or the original.

That's just the way it is...and each one is individual, no single restore to multiple mailboxes here.

 

[Eamo]

Got this from CA web site! Worked for me with arcserve2000 sp3



PROBLEM: E8602 EC=301 HrBackupPrepare failed in an Exchange full backup with either an incremental or differential backup rotation. Circular logging is enabled on the Exchange server. It appears that the Global Rotation rules override the agent's rules, and force an incremental or differential backup of Exchange, which will generate this error when Circular logging is enabled. Client had applied ARCserveIT SP1 and successfully updated the Exchange Agent component, but the error still occurred.

RESOLUTION: Use Regedit32 and do the following:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ComputerAssociates\ ArcserveIT\Base\Task
Create the following key under the "Task" key: "DSFullBackup" The Class can be left blank.
Under \DSFullBackup add the Value: ExchangeFullBackup:REG_DWORD:0x1

Once these changes have been made, ARCserveIT will always do a full backup of Exchange, regardless of the global Options for the rotation scheme.

 

[darrenmills]

Thanks for all your reply's.

I have found aswell that if i try to restore using the restore manager and then restore by session that my recent backup's do not appear in there even if i merge the tapes.Yet if i go via the restore wizard they do appear in there!.Weird.

I will definately give the registry entry ago.Just checking,this should be done on the machine that i'm running Arcserve on and not on the machine i'm running Exchange on yeah?

So to summarise Backing up Exchange,i should really backup the Information store every night (i would probably sleep alot better doing this anyway) and maybe a Brick Level back up once a week fully and the rest of the week incrementally since by the sound of it Brick Level restore's are only useful if an individual has a problem with their mailbox.

 

[Eamo]

The regedit above is for the exchange server only as this holds the DS store and Arc exchange agent.

Good look!
Eamo

 

[tbeeber]

If you are looking to restore the Exchange DB from the Restore manager, you need to look under the "Microsoft Windows Network" branch of the tree, not the client agents branch. It's not real intuative, but that's where you'll find it. I've also found you need to select the destination Exchange IS under the MS Windows network branch, as well, not the Client agents branch, or the restore gets an error.

Also be careful about presuming "if i had to restore my Exchange server I would restore the last information store backup then restore the incremental brick level backup's to bring the Exchange server up to date." The IS backup and the Brick-level backup are not nessesarily in sync, and this is not guaranteed to make a complete restore.