Exchange Info

[rodentcentre]

Exchange 2000 SP3
Windows 2000 Server (2.6 Ghz Xeon, 1GB RAM)
Veritas Backup Exec

As many of you may know from reading some of my messages on this forum, I am a noob when it comes to Exchange. With that being said, are there any pointers that you can offer me when it comes to anything to do with Exchange in general?? What types of maintenance do you do and when do you do it?? How often do you back the stores and mailboxes up?? How large is generally acceptable for stores?? Since I don't really have any bad habits as of yet, what are some best practices that I can learn to become a good Admin?? What are some good books to read for both learning and desk reference?? Any other advice or suggestions or other issues that you might deal with that I should look out for?? Thanks a lot.

 

[Zelandakh]

Advice - read this forum for general stuff. Read backup exec too.
Maintenance - I've covered this a lot. Don't fiddle and it pretty much looks after itself.
Backup - how much downtime do you want and if you restore, how far back do you want to be left? I backup every day and have logs and store on different arrays so I can roll forwards to point in time.
Large - stores should be 30GB normally but 50GB is ok if it is on something like a fibre array.
Best practices - get Exchange Best practices analyser. Tells you what you are missing.
Books - Microsoft Press Exchange 2003.

Advice - read the FAQ sections in TT and on msexchange.org
visit

http://www.msexchange.me.uk

for some advanced stuff.
visit

http://www.gillott.co.uk/nick/ExchangeAL.htm

for what has been finished.

Oh, and ask foolish questions here about what you want to do / know rather than foolish questions about what you need to fix after the event