Backups - brick level vs information store

[Norwich]

Hi,

I'm configuring an Exchange 5.5 server for backups with ArcServeIT 6.61's Exchange Agent.

I'm really looking for people's views on whether to use bricks level backups or just the information store as a whole?

Bricks is great for pulling off individual emails but I would think it'll take a good lot longer on an IS with 100 mailboxes and nearly 12GB of store.

Is there any benefit in doing both types in one scheduled job? Or would it be better to keep a deleted retention time of 7 days in Exchange and just do a bricks level backup at the weekend (I'm assuming the bricks level backup will restore deleted messages that are still stored under the retention period).

Also, the backup option to deleted unused logs when backing up the Information Store (assuming no circular logging) does not seem to be available under bricks level backups only. Does this mean bricks level backups without Info Store backups will let the logs run away in size?

Any thoughs welcome.

Thanks...

 

[GeoffTCS]

Norwich,

A sound backup policy is both the Info store and the Mailboxes. Mailbox (or brick level) restore loses single instance storage.

Geoff

 

[fuego007]

To answer your last question; Yes, performing brick-level only backups will result in the transaction log files not being deleted. On top of that, it is very difficult (not to mention foolhardy) to attempt to restore your IS from a brick-level backup should your IS become hopelessly corrupt. I would recommend performing brick-level backups along with the IS, but only for comapny VIPs.

Good luck,
Bob

 

[30362]

I have been knee-deep in just this situation recently, I inherited an Exchange server where the previous admin was doing a brick-level only and no IS backup. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) circular logging was turned on so the logs weren't running away and running the server out of space.

A few days ago, before I got a chance to fix anything on the server, the IS corrupted in a bad way and I have been trying to do a brick-level restore of the entire IS (47gb with 180 mailboxes before it bit the dust).

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER rely on just a brick-level backup, with just the brick-level as a restore option all my calendar information and all contact email addresses are gone (Arcserve says this is a known issue). The brick level backup was taking 16+ hours nightly (since it uses the MAPI interface - 10mb a minute) whereas my IS backup was backing up in just under an hour (917mb a minute).

My new strategy going forward is to do both an offline (stop all services and backup the MDBDATA and DSADATA folders) and an online backup. The offline will backup all the logs and the online will then backup them up again and purge them. If you ever need to get an individual mailbox restored I recommend PowerConnect from Ontrack - it will allow you to view (and move data from) an offline PRIV.EDB file so you don't have to restore your PRIV.EDB to a backup Exchange server. Give it a look, you can download a free demo - it is VERY powerful.

Also, make sure that you turn OFF circular logging, this will allow you to use the previous night's backup and still restore the server to a point in time using the log files so that no data is lost from backup time to point of failure time.

Whew, that was a mouthful, but after spending 5+ 19hr days I am a HUGE advocate of IS backup and hate the brick-level options (or lack thereof) out there.

 

[Norwich]

Thanks for that - much appreciated. Think I'll be doing an IS backup daily with a bricks over the weekend (for VIPs requests)

 

[Joshua1]

What is the web site to get to power connect?

 

[fuego007]

If you are going to do brick-level backups for your VIPs, I would recommend doing so daily. The last thing you want to tell a VIP is that it will take a day to get his last weeks worth of messages. Besides, backing up only a handfull of mailboxes doesn't take that long (as long as they're not huge!).

 

[30362]

I agree w/ fuego, either do brick-level daily for those special folks.

PowerConnect can be found at:

http://www.ontrack.com/powercontrols/

 

[routeconfig]

Hi,

I want to restore ONLINE backup to our standby server. Can anyone share his views, that will be great!!

We have Backup Exchange server installed on Offsite, which is replica of production server & working fine. We want to restore mailboxes (IS )only.

1.Should we need to run (#eseutil /p) after restoring the IS & Will that bring back IS service on-line?

2. Since backup is ON-LINE (w/o circular logging), will it bring back all mails (till backup was done?)

Thanks in advance!!

John