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Active File Exclusions for Exchange and AOFO

BH
Level 3
Greetings,

I have a GFS rotation policy enabled for B2D backups.  I have two selection lists that i use to create jobs:   One for the Exchange Agent (full IS with GRT), and one for everything else including the file system data (C: and D:).

I am noticing that my file system backup is backing up my .edb and .stm Exchange files in my MDBDATA directory.  However, I was under the belief that these should not be backed up because of Active file Exclusion.  Further research shows that because I have the AOFO option set (Auto Select), that this does not utilize the Active File Exclusion.

The problem is that I want to take advantage of the AOFO to backup other files that may be in use (pst files, office files in use, etc).

What is the Best Practice / Recommended way to exclude the flat-file exchange data from my file system backups using AOFO?

I also assume the same thing is happening to my SQL data?

thanks

version: Backup Exec 12.5
5 REPLIES 5

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited
Hi there,

Simple solution is to deselect the folders that your .edb and .stm files are located in.
The exclusion list should automatically do that, but I wouldn't trust that too much.
Deselecting those folders means that you can still use your AOFO to back up your other files!

laters!

Hemant_Jain
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified
By default, active file exclusion is enabled. If this is enabled, edb stm files should be skipped, provided you have Exchange Agent licensed and exchange selections visible in the selection list. I hope you are backing up this data from exchange selections. If that is the case, and you still see them in the selections, you may want to exclude through global excludes : Editt-> Selections-> excludes.

Also, you may want to check the registry key mentioned in following document. Active file exclusion must not be disabled.
http://support.veritas.com/docs/259152

Please mark it a solution, if this is useful.
Thanks

BH
Level 3
Thanks to both for answers - what I did do what exclude them through file selections for now - as it was th only way I could figure to do it.

@BEsymc - I have checked the registry for the Active Exclusion value and it is not set (meaning Active File Exclusion should be on).
I also do have the Exchange agent licensed and running - I am backing up the entire IS using the agent in another job (I can browse the entire IS and all mailboxes).

I am curious because you seem to indicate that I shouldn't even see the exchange flat file structure as a selection when browsing my drive?

Also, you seem to indicate in your response that the files should be skipped, yet you don't make any differentiation between using AOFO and not using AOFO. 

Can you confirm that if working properly, I shouldn't even be able to select the edb/stm/log files in my selection list?
Can you confirm if the edb/stm/log files should be excluded with Active File Exclusion when using or not using AOFO options in a job?  (i.e. Active File Exclusion does or does not work when using AOFO?).

thanks!

UPDATE:  Just to confirm - the documentation/help states the following:

"If you select a volume that contains Exchange data for backup, the Exchange Agent uses Active File Exclusion to automatically exclude Exchange data that should not be included in a volume-level backup. For example, .EDB and .STM files, as well as transaction log files, should not be part of a volume-level backup because they are opened for exclusive use by Exchange.

Without this exclusion, during a non-snapshot backup, these files appear as in use - skipped. During a snapshot backup, these files may be backed up in an inconsistent state, which could create restore issues.

While it is not recommended, if you want to include Exchange data in a volume-level backup, you must first dismount the storage groups that you want backed up, and then run the backup job."

What I am most interested in here is what is considered a snap-shot backup?  Is it the same as AOFO?  if Active Exclusions don't work with a snapsnot backup, is there a way to backup open files and not do a snap-shot?



Hemant_Jain
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

That really should not be the behaviour. After you add exchange agent license, edb and stm files will be visible in selections, but they should be greyed out. Try creating this key and set its value to 1, instead of 0 as mentioned in the document. Once done, restart services on media server and check if that helps these files to be greyed out. It seems some changes have been done to this key in the past, which might have changed
the default behaviour.
 

Regarding your question on snapshot, yes active file exclusion should work with snapshot backup also. snapshot backup is the AOFO backup. For open files, you do need to use AOFO to be able to back them up, otherwise the open files will be skipped.

Thanks

BH
Level 3
@BESymc Thanks for the info. They do appear to be showing greyed out (although they look like the are greyed out AND checked... is that normal?). Also, can you reconcile what the documentation said that I bolded in my previous post about these files still being backed up when doing a snapshot with what you are saying here (that the exclusion should work with snapshot backups also). Unless I am misreading it would appear that what you are saying is in contradiction from the documentation - and I just want clarification. thanks.