CPS backup location

[Theoneandonly]

Hi all,

I'm new to BE (version 11D). I've been using it for a while, classical daily backup full on ultrium (small company, not a lot of data). My vendor told me that in order to benefit from Exchange 2003 backup/restore features at mails or mailboxes level, I had to install CPS, which I did (the console on the BE server, the agent on Exchange server). When read documentation about exchange options, and if I'm correct, backup of exchange can be done on local disk only (not on tape). Is it exchange server local disk ? Backup server one ?
I'm confused here. What's the best practice using CSP. I would also have another issue to solve : Symantec doc mention the fact that CSP console and agent shouldn't be on the same server (especially when BE is already installed on it). Is it however possible ? What would be the hardware requirements ?

Any help is welcome.

 

[steveot]

well I dont know what vendro told you you have to istall CPS. Basically you can backup to tape or disk with Backup Exec. If you backup directly to tape and use the Exchange GRT option when you goto restore and "Exchange item" it will stage the tape to disk. So if your information store is 50GB you need 50GB free disk local disk on the media server..just to restore 1 email. If you backup exchange to disk first then duplicate to tape it may make it easier but that depends on how may request you get to restore email. If you add CPS to the exchange backup your just adding recovery points meaning you can backup the exchange log anywerhere from 15min to 12hours. This has to be to disk. All CPS Exchange allows you to do it take backup and ability to restore to a better point in time. If you took cps recovery point every hour and email could come into a mailbox and sit for hour. CPS backs it up. The user delete its. They need it back you can recovery it. If you use Just backup exec your probably running the backup at night. So if that user gets the email and deletes its..its gone.

 

[Theoneandonly]

Thanks steveot,

If I understand you correctly, there's no way to make selective restore (restore one mail or one mailbox) even if I use CPS ? In case of problem, I have to restore the whole information store ?

As the point of buying BE licence was to have that feature (we used to use Windows backup) to avoid restoring EDBs, I hope I'm wrong.

 

[steveot]

You CAN restore and individul email with Backup Exec and Exchange License when you enable "GRT Granular Restore Technology" in the job setup. So if you backup to tape with GRT selected and you want to restore 1 email item Backup Exec will stage the tape data to disk. This disk has to be local to media server. So lets say your information store is 50GB. Your ran a backup to tape. You need to restore and email item from tape. You insert the tape. Run a restore job and Backup Exec stages the Information store on tape to disk. Basically it has to restore the information store to local server, then extract the email you want and send it to the exchange server. You can enable the old school brick level backup which will make the tape backup job run longer but you can restore directly from tape. So its a trade off. If you were running GRT backup to disk then you can restore email right from disk and lot faster...but that all depends on how many backups you can store on disk. Most people run a grt backup to disk and duplicate to tape. CPS just allow you to restore email items from more points in time.

 

[Theoneandonly]

Got it now, many thanks!