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Using Backup Exec to backup Exchange 2003

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by philip_calvert

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Hi all,

Can anyone point me in teh direction of a detailed explanantion of the workings of Backup Exec 9 and how it backs up and restores microsoft Exchange 2003?

I'm having difficulty at the minute due to size so wondered which parts i need to backup to just make sure i have a backup coopy incase anything goes wrong. once i've done this i can trouble shoot the issue further. Sleepless nighst are a plenty at teh min due to no backup of mails held at all :o(

Do i need to backup the information store and the mailboxes and the priv.edb file. This would end up being a backup of probably 3 times the store size !!! is that right ?

Many Thanks
Gav

10 replies

by Former member

Get extra internal hdd's or external hdd's to do the back up, and since you have not done any then your best bet is to do two or three back up jobs.

Back up methods:
Introduction to Exchange 2003 Backup Methods

Microsoft Exchange server has the usual range of backup methods, FULL, incremental and differential. What's new is Windows Server 2003 supplying the Volume Shadow Copy Service, which speeds up online Exchange 2003 backups.
What you need to do is the FULL back up.
When you have done the full back up you can then do an incremental back up (meaning any data that is changed, gets changed in the back up, so you do not have to do a full back up).
A full back up takes up more storage space than Incremental back ups.

Types of Exchange Server 2003 Backup

Full Backup
Make it your reflex to make a full backup of Exchange. Here are two killer reasons why a full backup is so much better than the alternatives; you only need one tape for a restore and a full backup purges the transaction logs.

Only resort to differential or incremental if the time taken by the full backup is unacceptable. If the duration seems too long for a full backup, try work-arounds like faster tapes, backup to disk then to tape. Anything to avoid having to use incremental or differential backups.

Differential Backup
If you have tried every trick in the book, and a full backup still takes too much time, then choose a differential rather than incremental backup. Remember that when you restore differential tapes, there must be a full backup as a reference point. Traditionally, the full backup is made at weekends, complimented by a differential backup on each weekday night. Times may vary but the guideline would be the hours of lowest user activity.

Unfortunately, differential backups do not purge or truncate the transaction logs, so not only does the differential backup get slightly bigger each day, but the logs are using up more and more disk space until you perform the next full backup.

Incremental Backup
Avoid this method. To prove my point try a test restore on a Friday. Calculate how many tapes you need and how long it will take. Realize that there is a five times greater chance of a slip up before the data is recovered, than with a full backup. Another clue that this is a poor method is that SQL and other relational databases do not allow incremental backups. Two tiny pieces of good news, incremental backups are quick and they do delete old portions of the transaction logs.

Copy Backup
This is a specialist method which is useful if you need to take a snapshot of the system without altering the archive bit. Differential and Incremental backups take their cue from the archive property of the files, so my point is that a copy backup doesn't affect other backup schedules that you have in place.

Daily Backup
This method surprised me, I thought that it would backup any file within the last 24hrs. Not so. It only backed up files that had changed since midnight, time stamp 0:00. I cannot recommend this method for Exchange 2003.
http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/exchange2003/exchange2003_backup_methods.htm

Please post back if you have any more problems or questions.
If this information is useful, please mark as helpful. Thanks.

by philip_calvert

Many thanks for the comprehensive answer thats very helpful.

Would it be possible for you to answer the follwoing...

In the folder structure on my mail server i have an exchange folder that holds the priv.edb and a few other important files. Do these files need backing up, or does the backup exec exhchange agent take care of everything when i select the information store and the mailboxes in the exchange section of backup exec?

Many Thanks
Gav

by Former member

If you do a FULL back up (and this is a must), the back up should take care of the needed files.

Please post back if you have any more problems or questions.
If this information is useful, please mark as helpful. Thanks.

by dumphrey

are your information store/mailboxes for your server. Its THE database as you will (2 parts). Veriats shold be backing these up when you select database store etc in the target. You can verify this by reading the veritas log after a successful back up.

by philip_calvert

Cheers.

Am I right in thinking that for a full back up for failover purposes I can get away with just backing up the information store?

Is it right that the only reason you would back up the mailboxes as well is if you needed to restore individual mailboxes or mails.

If you do back up both the information store and the mailboxes, does that mean that the backup is in effect twice the size ?

Many thanks for your help on this its very very much appreciated!

Gav

by Former member

It all depends on the type of back up.
But your main concern now is to do a full back up, since you do not have any back ups in place you are taking a chance. Only do a back up of the most importance that is related to what you need in case of any down time. If it is emails then do that, if a Full computer back up then do that (this i would do if i were you).
Always do a full back up. that way you have a starting point when you need to do a restore.
But the choice is yours really. But time is ticking, so do that full back up now, when finished, try the restore function to make sure that the back up is successful and there are no errors. If all is ok then that is one worry over, the other back ups you can try out, but read my earlier post with the info or print it out so that you have the info with you when you need it.
I have (on my desk top) four back up drives all different in sizes, plus i have a Linux server running Xandros for extra back ups, i have my programs, music, documents all on these drives. So if i need to do a format/restore for any reason i have the info on hand. Different organizations have different reasons for backing up data, some just back up important files, some do a full back up once a month, some do a full back up every month and an incremental back up every week. You have to put into place a policy, a policy of the worse case scenario, I:E, what would you do if the your server(s)/computer(s) went belly up?. That to you is not an option, the option you should have in play is the restore functions on every computer/server in your organization. Do an image of every computer/server every month or have a back up server in play just for this and nothing else. If you value your data then you need to do this now. :)
I value my data because it costs me a lot of money if i have to buy it ALL over again, to me paying twice for the same data/programs is NOT an option in my view, i have better things to save the money for.

Please post back if you have any more problems or questions.
If this information is useful, please mark as helpful. Thanks.

by philip_calvert

If i select all the exchange attributes in exec and run a test i get a job size of 82gb (ish) but when i run teh actual job it goes way ocver that and takes over 24hrs for me to get to a fail(taking into account a change of tape the next day).

So basically as an absolute minimum could i just backup the information store and leave the mailboxes? Would that mean that if the system fell over i could restore teh server and everyones mailboxes in one go? I think thats the minimum i want to get out of teh way at the minute.

Cheers
Gav

by Former member

One thing before you do a back up and that is to do a defrag of the data and do a check disk on the drive(s). Run a system check to make sure everything is without errors. That way when you do any kind of back up it will be error free.

Please post back if you have any more problems or questions.
If this information is useful, please mark as helpful. Thanks.

by dumphrey

It sounds like its getting stuck, our veritas does that from time to time, and I have to delete the job and resulting cludge. Try updating the veritas software and backing up to spinning disk media and not straight to tape.. I have yet to figure out what causes this issue.

Clear out any temp folders, and check for volume shadow copies etc...make sure no other task is using the tape drive at the same time and server is not scheduled for any tasks other then back up.

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