Exchange Server mailboxes - worth backing up?

[torquemonster]

I'm hoping that someone can give me some feedback and let me know how big of a problem I'm facing (and whether it's worth the time I've devoted to it).

As noted in one of my earlier threads (link below), my BENT server is able to view/browse mailboxes on a separate Exchange server, and also able to back up the information store & directory store. Some of the mailboxes can be backed up, but the list of selected mailboxes appears rather old, & it doesn't allow me to change any selections (all mailboxes are grayed out).

My actual question is - How important is it to back up the actual mailboxes if the directory store & information store are being backed up? I've seen links to a "rant" that (apparently) argued that it's not necessary to back up the mailboxes if the other 2 are OK, but each time I try to follow the link, I get a 404...

Thanks in advance,

T.

BTW, if anyone's wanting to see more specifics on my problem, you can go to the page below:

thread481-364548

 

[IHUDDLES]

oddly enough, torquemonster -- I never have trouble backing up the MAILBOXES -- I get fails left and right trying to back up the edb files in Information Store and Directory store...

I have never seen your exact issue...

all I know is if all the lil quirks of OF - Exchange server option -- and what-not goof up in the slightets -- I don't have a good backup of those directory store edb files...

I am to the point where I would like to know

how to

manually copy

all the directory store / edb files

I mean what to do on the Exchange 5.5. server (same domain, NT 40 sp6 environment)

what services to take down momentarily;

in order to get a successful copy of the edb folders/files

a "manual backup" in other words

 

[DefinityCorporation]

Torque- One of our customers is an international chemical manufacturer, (database for US mailboxes is 40 GB) and just squeezes onto a dlt 40/80. Anyway, in reference to the issue; they migrated recently to EX2K and the sysadmin lost the president's mailbox! (of 350 boxes, some luck) and the 40 gig store had a few VERY minor errors. We had to build a parallel EX server and DC to restore his mail because they did not have a bricks-level backup. It took two days instead of 10 minutes and it cost them six grand. So we recommend backing up mailboxes in mid to large size organizations. Good luck!

 

[GonzarTheGreat]

What version of Exchange (5.5, 2k?)? With 5.5 (not sure with 2k), ensure you have the Exchange Client Admin installed on the backup server, and also that you have Outlook installed for the MAPI functionality. Create a mailbox with full admin over Exchange mailboxes, and associate it with your domain backup account. Login on backup server with domain backup account, and create a mail profile with the mailbox (I tend to rename this profile the same name as my domain backup account for clarity). Change this to the default profile. Make sure the MAPI32.DLL and the correct version is copied to the Veritas BackupExec \NT folder. Reboot. Load BE, and when you selec the mailboxes selection, when the window prompt comes up, type in the domain backup account/profile name if you synced them, and you should get all your mailboxes.
If its still caching up the old data, try stopping BE services, renaming the BEWINUI.UNI file and restarting BE services (this file holds your connection info names pw's etc.) and this will force BE to re-create the full connection.
This can be a battle to initially get going. From extensive experience, I definately recommend mailbox backups as well. I've seen this save a persons job.

 

[Qdog]

First of all. I cannot imagine backing up all the mailboxes daily as some orgs do. Exchange 5.5 and 2000 have a built-in feature called deleted item retention. For Exchange 5.5 this is only for mail messages. For Exch2K this is for mailboxes as well. For 30 days by default, Exch2K retains deleted mailboxes. The default for mail messages is zero days, so you will have to set that higher obviously. Keep in mind the longer you set that, the larger the databases grow. Your users can use Outlook to recover mail messages they deleted out of the Deleted Items.
So with all this in mind, I would backup all the mailboxes at most, biweekly, and the critical ones like the Prez at least every week.
To answer the dude who mentioned he can't get the .edb files. If you are doing online backups of Exchange using the agent in Backup Exec, you shouldn't be selecting the file directories where Exchange is installed. BE cannot backup the files where Exchange is installed because they are in use! If you want to get those files you have to stop all the Exchange services. This is called a flat-file backup.
Finally, follow Burro111's post and you should be able to browse/backup your mailboxes. He is right on.

Understanding Deleted Item Retention and Message Deletion Process:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q249680

Understanding Deleted Item Recovery:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q228934

 

[torquemonster]

First off, let me say thanks to all for the feedback.

DefCorp - I kinda felt that backing them up was the right thing to do, but as I looked into it, it seemed as though there were some that felt it was unnecessary. Thanks for affirming my "gut feeling"!

Burro111 - It is indeed ver. 5.5, and I have walked through most of the steps you've outlined (inc. the .UNI file procedure). I wish I could say that there was a step I'd forgotten or didn't know about, but I discovered one day that it had started working on one of my alternate job definitions, & when I switched back to the primary, all of a sudden it worked too... Wish I knew what made the difference, it's frustrating to not know what was wrong or what fixed it!

QDog - Thanks for letting me know about deleted item retention, I'm sure that'll save us some desktop support time. I also appreciate the links you've posted, I've printed them out & will use them as a guide to setting that up.

Once again, thanks all!