I am a new IT Manager and I made a mistake today, a big mistake. Let me start at the beginning and excuse the long post, I want to be thorough so you can understand my plight.
We run an Exchange 2003 SP2 on Windows Server 2003 SP2. We currently have around 200 Mailboxes. Our backup system is a Quantum Superloader 3 using Symantec Backupexec 11D. We do have the Exchange Agent for Backupexec. We do not have circular logging enabled.
We have in the past not set any size limits for sending or receiving messages. We also never implemented quotas or limits on user mailboxes. As a result we have seen explosive growth on the server and reached the 75GB limit today. Of course the mailbox store dismounted automatically.
I went into Exchange and turned the retention policy down from 30 days to 0 days and ran the Cleanup Agent. All of the mailboxes pending deletion were already backed up and it was an easy way to free up 2.5GB. Disaster was averted and the server was up and running with the store mounted. Now we needed a permanent solution and I knew the majority of our problem was not have any policies in place. Were we to control out mailbox management better we could last much longer on 75GB. Our largest ten mailboxes all topped 1.5GB each.
I began to open the mailbox management policy and set it to report the space savings we would realize if we implemented a new management policy. I set it to report any message over 10MB and any deleted item over 7 days. Along with this I was planning on implementing a 10MB to 15MB send and receive limit. I would would want to seek management backing to help hedge user backlash and this report should seal the deal.
Here is where the problem is: Somehow I accidentally selected Delete Immediately instead of Generate Report Only. When the report arrived there had been 13GB deleted. With retention still set to 0 days at the time the user can not recover their own messages through Outlook.
The last full backup was Saturday August 25, 2007. I have an incremental backup from last night as well.
I have no idea where to begin.
Should I restore the entire Information Store? and then what?
Should I inform the users and selectively restore?
Should I contact Microsoft with a support incident for advice or would that not be of any help here?
Is is possible for Symantec to help me automate the restore of these files?
-Sean H
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Multithreading is just one thing after, before, or simultaneous with another.
We run an Exchange 2003 SP2 on Windows Server 2003 SP2. We currently have around 200 Mailboxes. Our backup system is a Quantum Superloader 3 using Symantec Backupexec 11D. We do have the Exchange Agent for Backupexec. We do not have circular logging enabled.
We have in the past not set any size limits for sending or receiving messages. We also never implemented quotas or limits on user mailboxes. As a result we have seen explosive growth on the server and reached the 75GB limit today. Of course the mailbox store dismounted automatically.
I went into Exchange and turned the retention policy down from 30 days to 0 days and ran the Cleanup Agent. All of the mailboxes pending deletion were already backed up and it was an easy way to free up 2.5GB. Disaster was averted and the server was up and running with the store mounted. Now we needed a permanent solution and I knew the majority of our problem was not have any policies in place. Were we to control out mailbox management better we could last much longer on 75GB. Our largest ten mailboxes all topped 1.5GB each.
I began to open the mailbox management policy and set it to report the space savings we would realize if we implemented a new management policy. I set it to report any message over 10MB and any deleted item over 7 days. Along with this I was planning on implementing a 10MB to 15MB send and receive limit. I would would want to seek management backing to help hedge user backlash and this report should seal the deal.
Here is where the problem is: Somehow I accidentally selected Delete Immediately instead of Generate Report Only. When the report arrived there had been 13GB deleted. With retention still set to 0 days at the time the user can not recover their own messages through Outlook.
The last full backup was Saturday August 25, 2007. I have an incremental backup from last night as well.
I have no idea where to begin.
Should I restore the entire Information Store? and then what?
Should I inform the users and selectively restore?
Should I contact Microsoft with a support incident for advice or would that not be of any help here?
Is is possible for Symantec to help me automate the restore of these files?
-Sean H
----------------------------------------
Multithreading is just one thing after, before, or simultaneous with another.
