Brick Level backups via Veritas Netbackup 5.1

[silentsam33]

I have been investigating performing bricklevel backups via Veritas Netbackup 5.1 MP4 on W2K servers. I can figure out how to perform a mailbox level backup for a whole mailbox store, but can't figure out how to select only some mailboxes. This was quite easy in Backup Exec 8.6/9.1, but how is it done via policy in Netbackup?
We have almost 30 IS servers and 40,000 mailboxes and wish to select 400-500 VIP mailboxes for bricklevel backups. This is in a addition to daily Full backups of Storage Groups.
I would appreciate if anyone could point me in the right direction (and yes I know bricklevels slow and truely not needed, but what Management wants......)

 

[comtec17]

In order for NetBackup to backup individual mailboxes, the account created or used to start the service must have a valid and unique email account created, as well as being a part of the Domain Admins group.
To configure the mailbox for the NetBackup Client service account
Open the NetBackup Administration Console or the Remote Administration Console.
In the left pane, expand Host Properties.
Click Clients.
In the right pane, right-click on the client you wish to configure and choose Properties.
Expand Windows client and click Exchange.
In the Mailbox for message level backup and restore box, specify the mailbox. The mailbox may be specified as:
An Exchange mailbox name
A fully-qualified name: /O=Org_Name/OU=Site_Name/CN=Server_Name/CN=Mailbox_Name
A mailbox alias

Individual Mailbox Policy
Log on to the server as administrator and start the NetBackup Administration Console.
In the left pane, right-click Policies and choose New Policy.
The Add a New Policy dialog is displayed.
In the Policy name box, type a unique name for the new policy.
Click OK
From the Policy Type box, select the MS-Exchange-Server policy type.
Fill in all attributes of the policy, create the schedule, and select the clients.
For the selections tab, this is where you will specify what you want to backup.
For Individual Mailboxes select the selections tab and click new
Click the Directives button.
From the Directive set list, select MS_Exchange_Mailbox.
From the Directive list, select Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes:\.
Click OK
Click at the end of the new entry, and, after the directive name, specify the mailbox(es) or mailbox folder(s) to back up.
For an individual mailbox or mailbox folder, append the name of the mailbox or folder.
For multiple mailboxes or folders, use the supported wildcard characters to specify the names of the mailboxes or folders. Multiple data streams must be enabled in order for backups to be successful.

To Backup Example Path
An Individual Mailbox Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes:\Mailbox 1\

A Mailbox Folder Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes:\Mailbox 1\Top of Information Store\Inbox

Multiple Mailboxes, using 2 Data Streams NEW_STREAM
Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes:\[a-m]*
NEW_STREAM
Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes:\[n-z]*

Multiple Mailboxes, using 1 stream for each Mailbox Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes:\*

Multiple folders
using 2 Data Streams
NEW_STREAM
Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes:\Mailbox 1\Top of Information Store\[a-m]*
NEW_STREAM
Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes:\Mailbox 1\Top of Information Store\[n-z]*

 

[Stumpr]

Great write up!

onlything I have to add is that you may want to create smaller streams and more of them for the mailbox. I use six streams. This gets the job done much faster.

Also I was getting intermittent 144 errors until I broke the images down to smaller streams.



Bob Stump
Just because the VERITAS documentation states a certain thing does not make it a fact and that is truth.

 

[silentsam33]

Thanks for the information. So it looks like if I want to do bricklevels on only selective mailboxes, then I have to setup multiple entries like...."Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes:\Mailbox 1\". I was hoping that this was not the case. This was much easier to do in Backup Exec. I guess netbackup was not designed to do selective mailbox level backups, at least easily.

 

[Stumpr]

Everything will be improved or fixed in the next release

Bob Stump
Just because the VERITAS documentation states a certain thing does not make it a fact and that is truth.

 

[Vela]

Don't forget your public folder backups too!

Microsoft Exchange Public Folders:\

 

[silentsam33]

When creating a individual mailbox backup job and I select the "Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes:\Mailbox 1\" option and put in my Exchange mailbox alias, but the job only partially completes with status code 1?. The logs show could not find file system object to backup. I can success do a mailbox level backup for a complete database, but not a individual mailbox. Anyone have any insight? Thanks.

 

[comtec17]

That would mean that you either do not have the mailbox name correct, or you are not typine in the name properly.

 

[Vela]

So your trying to backup 400-500 specific mailboxes? Ouch..

Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes:\Doe, John [jdoe]\

 

[silentsam33]

Thanks Vela. I will try that. I work in a large environment with a l700e Sun backend LTO2 tape Library (holds almost 700 tapes) with 4 backup servers and 2 switches. We get almost 1 TB throughput per hour. Bricklevels in my opinion are not needed (with a good retension policy) but the bosses want it, so.... But they have changed the target from 400-500 to around 30, so not as much of an issue. I was looking at running an Exmerge to do this but its a pain.

 

[Vela]

You want bricks...our senior attorney deleted all of his email one day and called me. If I wouldn't have been able to restore it, I would of been shown the door.

We have 5 mailservers and we backup-
Information Stores
Mailboxes "bricks"
Public folders
Mailserver file systems "all local drives"

everyday.

 

[OHWS]

OK, so a few of you are performing mailbox level backups in a fairly large Exchange environment. My question is what throughput are you getting with your mailbox level incremental backups?

Mine are painfully slow and are causing issues by running into production hours. I run my information store backups seperately because I have read that running them at the same time is a bad idea. The information store backups have regular throughput between 6000 and 9000KBps. On the other hand the mailbox level incremental backups are running at around 100 - 700 KB ps which is unnaceptable for my current environment.

I have read on the support site a few articles that stated it is not unusual for mailbox level backups to run @ 10% of the throughput of your information store. I just wanted to see if this is what other users are seeing also.

Also I did read about running test backups to a null device but after that they are very vague about what can be done if your results determine it is a client issue(s). Thanks in advance for any advice from your experiences! OHWS

Environment:
Master 4.5fp6 HP-UX
Media 4.5fp6 HP-UX
Client 2 Windows 2003 servers running Exchange 2003

Note: My full backups of the mailboxes areas are at around 80gig for each server.

 

[comtec17]

Performance is going to differ from site to site. This is mainly due to the setup/hardware/software/files on servers.

Yes, mailbox backups take a considerably longer time then backing up the information store. This is due to the agent opening the mailbox, reading through the data, and backing up small block data.

Mailbox backups should only be taken of the most critical inboxes, such as the CEO. It was never meant to be an alternate method to backing up exchange.

 

[silentsam33]

When I go to create a Bricklevel policy and select from the directive set list and select MS_Exchange_Mailbox, it always changes back to MS_Exchange_2000 (if I open up the policy again). The Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes:\Mailbox 1\ directive doesn't change though. Am I doing something wrong?

 

[silentsam33]

Got it to work with a * at the end of the mailbox name. It's a pain to have to create multiple policies, 1 for each mail server. But at least it is working.

 

[silentsam33]

I was able to perform the brick level backup, but now I cannot restore it. We have created a offline Exchange environment modeled on our production environment, but with no network connection. We often restore mailbox stores to the offline world to recover mailboxes for security investigations. But I just cannot get it to work in the offline world ( I am not allowed to try to restore in production). Do I need to creat a user account that matches the same name as in production? If so, should it have a blank mailbox or no mailbox at all? I would like to get this working if possible. I am using Netbackup 5.1 MP4.

 

[Vela]

We've had problems were users left the company and their accts were deleted causing restore pains. Now the accts are just deactivated.

You need to be able to restore the data to the orginal mailbox or a mailbox that has been around since the time the user was around such as the "postmaster" mailbox or you'll get "can't create object" errors all day long.

Exchange acct name.. should be the same in the offline world as the prod world

Ryan