11d Exchange Continuous Protection

[Kenneth_Sheppar]

I have installed 11d with all updates to my environment with Windows 2003 SP1 servers and a Exchange 2003 SP2 server. I do have my Exchange server backing up nightly to a local tape with the Exchange agent using GRC backups of the IS. I have also setup a B2D Exchange continuous job from another internal Windows 2003 SP1 server that also has BE 11d Media Server and Exchange agent installed. This job runs at 12 noon and includes the complete IS as a 11d continuous job.

My question is will I cause harm by running two Exchange IS jobs per day from different locations to different types of media? Also, will either of the jobs confuse the B2D continuous job if the first tape job clears the Exchange logs? And can I use the BE Web Retrieve to restore email data from a continuous job?

Thanks.

Ken

[Jamie_Glass_2]

> I have installed 11d with all updates to my
> environment with Windows 2003 SP1 servers and a
> Exchange 2003 SP2 server. I do have my Exchange
> server backing up nightly to a local tape with the
> Exchange agent using GRC backups of the IS. I have
> also setup a B2D Exchange continuous job from another
> internal Windows 2003 SP1 server that also has BE 11d
> Media Server and Exchange agent installed. This job
> runs at 12 noon and includes the complete IS as a 11d
> continuous job.
>
> My question is will I cause harm by running two
> Exchange IS jobs per day from different locations to
> different types of media? Also, will either of the
> jobs confuse the B2D continuous job if the first tape
> job clears the Exchange logs? And can I use the BE
> Web Retrieve to restore email data from a continuous
> job?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Ken

You will experience a problem with the CPS Exchange job if you have the tape job flushing the logs. It will cause the CPS job to fail every time. Here is how I remedied it:

1. My daily full Exchange backups to tape I changed to Copy so that it doesn't flush the logs.

2. I then set up a Sunday backup of the IS to a B2D folder with restore points every 2 hours. That Sunday job is set as a full w/ flushing of the logs.

So far, no problems! Good luck!

Jamie

[Kenneth_Sheppar]

Thanks for your reply.

So if I understand correctly, you have your Sunday job as your only Exchange CPS job and it snaps a picture every 2 hours for the updates. Is it redundant for me to perform the Exchange CPS job every day at noon or are the restore points enough? I'm guessing that the restore points only take a brief period with an average sized store (16Gb).

Also, after testing my CPS job, I've found that if I restore a single message back to the store with full over-write, it only resotes the header and subject line--the message itself is blank. This same thing occurs with my backup to tape restores using GRC backup/restores even though I get no errors in the backups or the restores.

Thanks again.

Ken

[Jamie_Glass_2]

I think its probably redundant to run the CPS job everyday. As long as you are running a D2T Exchange job nightly and CPS, you are pretty well covered.

[Kenneth_Sheppar]

I'm not very well covered becasue I cannot restore ANY of my individual messages from tape or disk when using the new GRC IS backup method. The backups complete withouth ANY errors, but the restores are all empty messages. I get the header information and the Subject line, but that's it.

Ken

[Shraddha_Dhaval]

Hi,

Is the issue resolved?

Thanks.

[Kenneth_Sheppar]

No, it is not working after weeks of testing and thousands of dollars spent on 11d. I've stopped using GRT backups because several of the Symantec moderators on this site have advised everyone to stop using GRT backups because they have confirmed that it doesn't work. You can refer to Shweta Rege's post from 12/26/2006 at 4:03 am from Symantec. His post states:


Hello,


This issue of GRT features and exchange backup is under research for the moment.

We do apologize for the inconvenience, but request you to take the backups by enabling legacy mailbox support.

Thanks


Shweta