Transaction Logs Question

[Joshua1]

What would be the best way to backup trans action logs incase the exchange system goes down hard and I have to build a new system then put the current email from , lets say the system goes down @ 5:00pm and the backup ended @11:00 am in the morning, from the whole day...

 

[dodgygeezer]

It depends on your backup software but most of them will allow you to do Differential backups of the Exchange server. This should backup all log files without deleting them.

Also note that circular logging must be disabled for this to work.

 

[Joshua1]

I am using Veritas 8.6

 

[dodgygeezer]

Well I've not used Backup Exec myself however I understand that you can do differential backups of Exchange and you can also backup to disk. Why not schedule a job to run every working hour (or however often you like) to keep over writing the same file (not on your Exchange server, natch) with a differential backup of Exchange. That way you'll always have a bang up to date backup file to use when the worst happens.

Anyway, check the BuExec documentation to see if thats possible

 

[Joshua1]

Thanks

 

[dodgygeezer]

If you've found this thread helpful then don't forget to mark the post as helpful

Thanks

 

[fuego007]

If you have circular logging disabled, you will be able to recover to the time of the crash. This is becausedisabling circular logging allows the transaction log files to accumulate until the databases are backed up. Once the backup has completed, all transaction log files except the five most recent (including the edb.log) will be deleted. As new messages come in, new log files are created. If the system crashes at 3:00 in the afternoon, and all the transaction log files since the last backup are intact, all you have to do is restore the databases (priv and pub) and restart the IS. This will cause the IS to read the uncommitted log files into the database, thus bringing the database up to date.

If you don't know if circular logging is disabled, open Exchange Admin and go to Organization|Site|Configuration|Servers|%servername% and open the properties of the server. Click on the 'Advanced' tab. Circular logging is right there. Both boxes should be UNchecked.

Good luck,
Bob

 

[Joshua1]

Ok let me understand this I do have circular logging disabled so the backup from last night ended @9:00am then @ 4:00pm the exchange system crashes(meaning I can't get on the sever @ all it is totally down)in this case I ahve to rebuild a new server then go off of tape , so how am I going to get the Transaction logs that will make the database current?

 

[justin2000]

Joshua1,
You can't, as they are on the old server which has crashed.

The only way around this is to take more backups during the day, differentials are the best way to go here - dodgygeezer has a pretty good way of doing it.