BE 12.5 and Exchange 2010

[Mike_Brass]

I have seen some non-Symantec articles claiming that individual mailfile backups and restores on Exchange 2010 are not possible using Backup Exec 12.5. Is this correct?

Also, does the latest version of Backup Exec only run on a 64-bit OS?

[VJware]

Exchange 2010 backup/restore is officially supported with BE 2010 & above.

BE 2010 media server can be on any supported OS, however if using for backup/restore of Exchange 2010, it has to be Win 2k8 x64 or Win 2k8 R2

[Mike_Brass]

Thanks re 2010

Annoying that the server has to be 64-bit. Acronis' competing product permits 32-bit and supports backing up & restores from Exchange 2010.

[VJware]

Verbatim from a Symantec KB -

To backup a 64-bit Exchange Server from a 32-bit media server, the 32-bit Exchange Management Tools are required on the 32-bit media server.

As Microsoft does not support/provide 32-bit Exchange Management Tools for Exchange Server 2010, a 32-bit media server cannot backup an Exchange 2010 server.

P.S - As per my last update, Acronis 11 still does not officially support Exchange 2010 backups/restores...Should be soon however with update 1 or 2 for ABR 11...That being said, the reason for a 64bit OS is mentioned above...

[Mike_Brass]

I spoke to one of Acronis' tech people this morning.

vmProtect6 runs on 32-bit hardware and will do mailfile-level backups and restores.

She said they have another similar product which will run on a 32-bit OS and will do mailfile-level backups and restores for Exchange 2010 as well.

[Mike_Brass]

http://www.acronis.co.uk/enterprise/products/vmprotect/#operating-systems

[CraigV]

...I guess what Symantec are doing in this case is following the Microsoft roadmap. This app looks the same as Veeam, but the downfall to that in my mind is that it means you have to bring up the VM in a "bubble" BEFORE restoring Exchange. In effect you're isolating a running backup VM from the production VM in order to pull the information out.

Symantec (probably ARCserve too) does this differently by allowing you to restore directly into Exchange (albeit with an agent) on an individual file basis, and in order to backup just Exchange for instance, you need to follow the requirements that they are following, as per MS.

[teiva-boy]

Microsoft's ONLY supported configuration for protecting an exchange server is using a 64bit OS.  Thus all the major backup venndors (i.e. Symc, EMC, Commvault, etc) all require you to have a 64bit OS to backup items like Exch2010 and Sharepoint 2010.

Becareful what a small player promises.  Over promise and under deliver when you get into complex situations.  Either with a proprietary unsupported method of protecting Exchange or compromises in data integrity.

Your comment of "mailfile-level backups," scare me as it sounds like a message level backup!  If thats true, backups could take many hours to days, vs a Db level backup.  This could be on of those compromises I mentioned that you need to dig deeper into...