Backup Exec 2014 Technical White Paper - Enterprise Server Option

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Technical White Papers are designed to introduce Symantec partners and end users to key technologies and technical concepts that are associated with the Symantec Backup and Recovery product family. The information within a Technical White Paper will assist partners and customers as they design and implement data protection solutions based on Symantec Backup and Recovery products.

The attached white paper is intended to assist technical personnel as they design and implement Backup Exec™ 2014 and the Enterprise Server Option and make related decisions.  The business value of the Enterprise Server Option will also be discussed in this white paper.

This white paper includes the following topics:

• Business Value
• Exchange Protection Methods and Technology
• Backup Exec and Exchange High Availability Configurations
• Exchange Recovery Methods and Technology
• Managing Backup Exec Rights and Permissions in Exchange Environments
• Example Backup Exec Configurations for Protecting Exchange
• Exchange Protection Notes and Best Practices
• Additional Resources

Managing Backup Operations in Large or Distributed Environments

As a result of the natural growth process companies experience over time, IT environments may experience changes that can increase the difficulty of achieving a successful data protection strategy.

Without the proper backup solution and associated management tools, these issues can quickly cause an increase in difficulty for administrators when it comes to ensuring critical business data is properly protected against disaster.

The Backup Exec™ 2014 Enterprise Server Option is designed to help IT administrators and Managed Service Providers meet the backup protection needs of growing companies. The Enterprise Server Option includes tools to scale a backup infrastructure and associated management capabilities to meet the needs of a growing environment. The Enterprise Server Option includes two components, which are as follows:

1. Central Admin Server Option (CASO)
2. Advanced Disk-based Backup Option (ADBO)

CASO and ADBO are optional components that can be leveraged to expand and scale the capabilities of a Backup Exec™ 2014 environment.

Central Administration Server Option

The first component of the Backup Exec™ 2014 Enterprise Server Option is the Central Admin Server Option (CASO).  CASO can help address a number of key problems associated with large or growing environments, including centralized management and monitoring of backup servers, load balancing of backup operations, centralization of backup data, and offsite disaster recovery.

Centralized Management and Monitoring

One of the most important capabilities that CASO enables for administrators is the ability to centrally manage and monitor backup and recovery operations across multiple Backup Exec servers in an environment. This includes protection policy configuration and deployment, backup server management, storage device management, reporting, as well as the ability to monitor the status of protected servers and associated active alerts.

Advanced Disk-based Backup Option

The second component of the Backup Exec™ 2014 Enterprise Server Option is the Advanced Disk-based Backup Option (ADBO). ADBO enables advanced backup processes associated with using disk storage devices, including the following:

• Synthetic Backups – A Synthetic Backup is a full backup manufactured by the Backup Exec server and assembled on disk storage without performing an actual full backup operation of the original protected resource. The synthetic full backup is “synthesized” using previous full and incremental backups that were already captured.
• True Image Restore – A True Image Restore operation recovers the latest and correct versions of files and directories precisely as they existed at a certain point in time.
• Off-host Backups – The Off-host Backup feature allows the bulk of the processing resources required to perform a backup operation to be spent at the Backup Server, alleviating the burden from the server that is being protected.

ADBO is an optional component of Backup Exec that expands the capabilities of Backup Exec™ 2014 in a specific infrastructure.

To read the full White Paper please download.