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Backing up MS Exchange that is a CCR Cluster

bjhow
Level 3

I just got the new BE 2010 and this is the first time I am going to back up a MS Exch 2007 CCR cluster. We had been using Retrospect which I absolutely abhored.  I have been using BE for years since version 7 I think, I always thought it was the best.  I am looking for a few tips as to how best to back up the MS Exchange in a cluster. The media server is not in the cluster. I want to back up both the information store and the individual mbx's too. I did do a test backup last night and got a message about the backup failed on Exchange DB. error e000037b - Using the job settings, Backup Exec attempted to back up the passive copy of the Exchange database. However, the passive copy was not available after the Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) snapshot was performed. Try to run the job again. Also mentioned to install the Active Directory agent as well. Somewhere I read, back up the active only and not the passive to fix this problem. Does anyone know if that is the case?  Also as part of that error message, it suggested to install the Active Directory agent which seems to be an add-on that I did not purchase. I installed it as a 60 day eval to see it that helps.

I hadn't installed the MS Exchange Management tools yet or the Mapi and CDO.  I guess what I am asking is should I install those if I want to do Individual mailboxes.  What server(s) does that get installed on, the virtual or both mailbox server's since it's a cluster, or just the active cluster member.  Thanks for any advice since I am a newbie when it comes to clustering.



 

7 REPLIES 7

ZeRoC00L
Level 6
Partner Accredited

bjhow
Level 3

No I haven't. I will check it out and try the rule handling option and see if that works. Sounds like it's a MS issue. Thanks.

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

As you got the 37b error - I would suggest setting the Exchange option in the job to backup from Active Copy only - Exchange 2007 SP1 and later has an issue with VSS and the Passive Copies that affects Backup Exec, the research we did at the time indicated that Microsoft made changes to VSS that inadvertently caused the issue.

Microsoft have released an article saying they have addressed the problem in SP3 Update 1 for Exchange 2007 - however I tested that recently (with LCR) and found that although it decreased the likelihood of getting the failure, down from 100% on my test system to only about 80% it still failed.

The issue has always been intermittent (heavily on the failure side) as such the best advice is avoid it altogether by using the Active Copy.

EDIT: Our document on the issue http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH61607

Onto your other comment - you do not need to do a mailbox backup and an Information Store backup in BE - as we have Granular Recovery Technology (GRT) which can access mail messages from an Information Store backup  - it is recommended against GRT (mainly for ease of restore) that you implement a Backup to disk strategy (with duplicate to tape if needed) so you might need more disk storage. Note if you don't do a B2D strategy - when it comes to restoring a single message the complete information store has to be staged back from tape to disk - which takes extra time and uses disk space anyway.

Siddh
Level 4

Colin is right.

I was facing the same issue with one of our customer. i did the same changes and backup is completing successfully

cedric
Level 4
Partner Accredited

Hi All,

 

i would to ask if I have a 2 node clsuter (active-passive). Where should I install the remote first? To the active node then passive node? Or Do i have to install on the active node, then move the cluster service to node 2 and make as active and install the remote agent.

 

Thanks in advance.

Siddh
Level 4

It dosent matter but first go for node passive node (Node which doesn’t have the resources) then move the resources and install on another one.

after installing agent on both the nodes you will see cluster server and both the node in backup exec while creating the job/ selection list.

Siddh
Level 4

Remote agent installation requires a reboot.

1  : NODE1 : Move the resources to NODE2, install remote agent on NODE1 and reboot
2  : NODE2 : Move the resources on NODE1, install remote agent on NODE2 and reboot