Backup for Exchange

Our organization has Exchange 5.5sp4 with ArcserveIT 6.61 Workgroup Edition installed locally on the Exchange server, and the Arcserve Backup Agent for Exchange. We also have ArcserveIT 6.61 Advanced Edition on another NT member server that we perform enterprise-wide backups with. The Arcserve backup agent for exchange will communicate with either the local Arcserve install or the enterprise NT install, but I don't beleive that it will work with a Nevell enterprise install. The following is one of the FAQ's dated 11/03/00 from CA's support site:

Q: Can ARCserve/IT v6.x for NetWare reliably back up any "live" databases (Notes, Oracle, Exchange, MS SQL, etc.) residing on Windows NT machines ?

A: ARCserve/IT v6.x for NetWare cannot reliably back up any "live" databases (Notes, Oracle, Exchange, MS SQL, etc.) residing on a Windows NT machine. In order to obtain reliable backup of any "live" databases (Notes, Oracle, Exchange, MS SQL, etc.) residing on a Windows NT machines, those "live" databases need to be closed and their services need to be shut down. Client Agent for NT v1.02 allows for pre and post execution commands which can help in shutting down and restarting those "live" databases before and after the backup.

We are very satisfied with the local backups that we maintain with Arcserve on the Exchange server using the Exchange Backup Agent, even its "Bricks Level" capability for individual message archive/restore. A word of caution - please do not count on bricks level backups alone for disaster recovery purposes. They are OK for spot retrieval, but very time/resource intensive for both the backup and restore process. A complete Store backup is really the only option for disaster recovery.

Hope thishelps, -Ewing

To take real-time backups of the email accounts and to restore any individual emails I think Verites is the best soluation

Regards
kalyan

Veritas have to different products for Exchange.
1) The first one, can backup/restore the complete database or any individual accounts, even messages.

2) The second one, allow store out of line, the old attached messages (something like HSM). With this feature, the complete database is very low,so you can make fasters backups and Exchange run faster to.

look into
http://www.veritas.com/us/products/remotestorage/

and

http://www.veritas.com/us/products/backupexec/beoptionsnt2000.html#exchange

I think that I better get my 2-cents in....
I do not think that there is a backup softwre availible that will let you backup a "live" exchange database. Exchange uses a Jet database that must be in a consistant state in order to restore it.
Now having said that, let me give you what I have experimented with-- There is a SAN out there called a Network Appliance or "NetApp". This is a VERY fast (faster than a local drive) network attached storage device capable or creating a "snapshot" of your databaseat any given time. We experimented with creating a snapshot and running the database verification agent against it. As long as there were no writes pending, we were able to restore the database to the last "snapshot" taken. We also were able to bring the "snapshot" up on a seperate system as the "live" database and were able to pull individul accounts up to restore.
Sounds great right? Well, there is a snag. At the time that we were experimenting, Microsoft did not support it. I know that this company was trying hard to get Microsoft approval and may have done so by now. But it was too late for us.

We have a 20TB exchange database supporting 100,000+ users on a centralized exchange system. Our exchange databases are held on EMC SAN's that have something called "time-finder" which is sort of like a "snapshot" This moves the entire database to a seperate disk that we can access through serperate servers to do individual restores.
We also backup our data to very large tape silo's using NetBackup. We are able to backup the entire database in 8hrs and restore any individual database in 2 to 4hrs.
We did a LOT of research into the backup software, sue to our size, and found NetBackup to be suitable to our needs.
I hope this helps~
Good Luck!

Yes,there are product availabe both from ArcServ and Veritas.
From ARCserv :
ARCserve 2000 Database And Messaging Backup Agents? - Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft Exchange Server
http://www.cai.com/arcserve/as2000db_pd.pdf
From Veritas:
VERITASBackup Exec ?for Windows NT and Windows 2000 -Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft Exchange Server
.
I had been test that both the software able perform realtime backup and also able restore the individual items when necessary.
.
Hope these are useful.

Thomas Ng