Exchange Server 2003 backups (sanity check)
23 July 2008, 04:01 PM
#1
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Exchange Server 2003 backups (sanity check)
Hi all,
Just looking for some verification that my backups for my ex2003 server are likely to "work" & that I'm not missing anything obvious.
We are a small company - 11 employees but we are heavily reliant on exchange as we are an internet facing company.
Current db size = 10gb
Backup procedure:
Daily:
(with exchange running)
Daily tape backup using NTbackup with the exchange plug in & files & mailboxes using a two week rotation
EXmerge - all mailboxes are stored as a PST on the Server, then copied onto my own PC (one employees - director fails due to size limitation).
(exchange is stopped)
MDBDATA & mtadata directories are copied onto my local PC
(exchange is then restarted)
All inbound & outbound emails are copied to a "journal" mailbox and are held there for 3 months (and then are automatically deleted).
Weekly:
- Friday's tapes are taken off-site (4 week rotation).
Is that fairly bullet proof?
I did a test restore of my email account from tape last week & it went OK.
Just looking for some verification that my backups for my ex2003 server are likely to "work" & that I'm not missing anything obvious.
We are a small company - 11 employees but we are heavily reliant on exchange as we are an internet facing company.
Current db size = 10gb
Backup procedure:
Daily:
(with exchange running)
Daily tape backup using NTbackup with the exchange plug in & files & mailboxes using a two week rotation
EXmerge - all mailboxes are stored as a PST on the Server, then copied onto my own PC (one employees - director fails due to size limitation).
(exchange is stopped)
MDBDATA & mtadata directories are copied onto my local PC
(exchange is then restarted)
All inbound & outbound emails are copied to a "journal" mailbox and are held there for 3 months (and then are automatically deleted).
Weekly:
- Friday's tapes are taken off-site (4 week rotation).
Is that fairly bullet proof?
I did a test restore of my email account from tape last week & it went OK.
23 July 2008, 04:23 PM
#2
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Providing you have a daily backup, and confirm on a daily basis that this has been successful, then you shouldnt need to do the flat file copy with exchange stopped.
Do a test restore every couple weeks/once a month to a recovery storage group to confirm the backup.
Since it's Exchange 2003 you'd be able to get a dial tone database up pretty much immediately and then use a recovery storage group to restore too, so your users would be able to send/receive immediately, and you'd merge in their older data after restoring it.
Probably just as quick as trying to exmerge the data back into the mailboxes if your backup hardware is decent.
I personally feel your current method is overkill, but if you have the time to do all those steps then it wont do any harm.
For me:
1. Daily full backup for two week, then after two weeks go to weekly's, then monthlys after 4 weeks.
2. Test restore to RSG every two weeks
3. Instead of PST's, make use of a policy for deleted item retention, that way users can recover individual items if they delete something, without you having to do a restore.
Just simplyfies things, but that's not to say your system above wont work, Id just be dubious about constantly stopping Exchange and copying the databases, not only is this a major admin pain for you, but also means email for your users is unavailable during this time.
Do a test restore every couple weeks/once a month to a recovery storage group to confirm the backup.
Since it's Exchange 2003 you'd be able to get a dial tone database up pretty much immediately and then use a recovery storage group to restore too, so your users would be able to send/receive immediately, and you'd merge in their older data after restoring it.
Probably just as quick as trying to exmerge the data back into the mailboxes if your backup hardware is decent.
I personally feel your current method is overkill, but if you have the time to do all those steps then it wont do any harm.
For me:
1. Daily full backup for two week, then after two weeks go to weekly's, then monthlys after 4 weeks.
2. Test restore to RSG every two weeks
3. Instead of PST's, make use of a policy for deleted item retention, that way users can recover individual items if they delete something, without you having to do a restore.
Just simplyfies things, but that's not to say your system above wont work, Id just be dubious about constantly stopping Exchange and copying the databases, not only is this a major admin pain for you, but also means email for your users is unavailable during this time.
25 July 2008, 04:35 PM
#3
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It can be tricky during peak times, why not perform this during a weekend or early hours, its always been how we do it.
The backups are a concern for me. I take it you mean a full server backup, not just exchange?
As Bob mentions, do it incrementally possibly over 6 months.
PST's can be copied to the users machines for speed and recovery of their mailboxes.
This ensures no data is lost during an outage.
Directors always flaunt their email housekeeping. I would move the archive to his machine to reduce the mailbox and prevent further failures.
I have had mixed fortunes restoring databases, as once corrupt, you are in deep trouble.
ESEutil is not friendly lol
The backups are a concern for me. I take it you mean a full server backup, not just exchange?
As Bob mentions, do it incrementally possibly over 6 months.
PST's can be copied to the users machines for speed and recovery of their mailboxes.
This ensures no data is lost during an outage.
Directors always flaunt their email housekeeping. I would move the archive to his machine to reduce the mailbox and prevent further failures.
I have had mixed fortunes restoring databases, as once corrupt, you are in deep trouble.
ESEutil is not friendly lol
29 July 2008, 12:01 PM
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eseutil does sometimes resolve database corruption, but you will lose some data.
With 2003 I really wouldnt spend ages trying to run eseutil against the DB. If it doesnt work on the first run Id prefer to get a dialtone database up, get users sending and receiving again almost instantly, and then restore to a recovery storage group.
Once restored, stop the IS and move the restored edb/stm files to the dialtone database (ie live database) location, and the dllatone database edb/stm files to the recovery storage group locations, and then merge the data from the much smaller dialtone database back into the large historical databases.
As this method relies on good backups, make sure your backup solution emails you to let you know the backup was successful, and do the test restores every couple weekes to validate this.
I wouldnt do the pst file exmerges, just use that recover deleted items policy.
Your database size is very small so a restore wont take long at all if required, if you wan to flat file copy it accross do so, but be careful, as the more you do things against your database the more you risk corruptiing something. Id personally leave that well enough alone.
If you want a flat file copy as a just in case, then use your backup solution to do a flat file backup of the edb/stm using open file backup agent rather than stopping everything and copying it.
With 10GB you could fit in an Exchange backup and following this a flat file backup between say 7PM and 10PM, then leave exchange to do its maintenance tasks overnight.
With 2003 I really wouldnt spend ages trying to run eseutil against the DB. If it doesnt work on the first run Id prefer to get a dialtone database up, get users sending and receiving again almost instantly, and then restore to a recovery storage group.
Once restored, stop the IS and move the restored edb/stm files to the dialtone database (ie live database) location, and the dllatone database edb/stm files to the recovery storage group locations, and then merge the data from the much smaller dialtone database back into the large historical databases.
As this method relies on good backups, make sure your backup solution emails you to let you know the backup was successful, and do the test restores every couple weekes to validate this.
I wouldnt do the pst file exmerges, just use that recover deleted items policy.
Your database size is very small so a restore wont take long at all if required, if you wan to flat file copy it accross do so, but be careful, as the more you do things against your database the more you risk corruptiing something. Id personally leave that well enough alone.
If you want a flat file copy as a just in case, then use your backup solution to do a flat file backup of the edb/stm using open file backup agent rather than stopping everything and copying it.
With 10GB you could fit in an Exchange backup and following this a flat file backup between say 7PM and 10PM, then leave exchange to do its maintenance tasks overnight.
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