Backup Exec 12 on Exchange Server

[TouroIT]

We are looking to hook up a tape drive directly to our Exchange server and install Backup Exec 12 on the Exchange server itself. Can anyone provide any do's/don'ts with this type of installation? Thank you in advance for any advice/comments.

[Ken_Putnam]

Will this be the only media server in your organization, backing up other resources, or will it only backup itself+Exchange?

If you will be backing up/restoring other servers, you may wind up with a network bottleneck affecting the mail users.

In days past, if you put the media server on an Exchange server, you could also run the box out of resources, but most modern servers have the memory and cycles that a media server on the Exchange box shouldn't hurt.  

Also, if the Exchange server ever dies, you then have to rebuild the media server first, then restore Exchange.  I alway prefer to have a dedicated media server, if possible. 

If you do go the route of a BackupExec media server different from your Exchange box, I'd recommend a separate Network (extra NICs in each box) for backup/restore only, separate from your regular LAN.   It doesn't have to be a real powerhouse, and doesn't have to run Server OS.  W2K Pro and XP Pro are both supported for media servers - though Vista is not.  As long as it has plenty of RAM and will accept the controller for whatever interface your backup device needs, a modern business desktop platform should suffice

As an example, at one point,  I had a DeskPro PII/233 with an add-in low end SCSI controller driving 2 DLT7000s.  It was running NT4W and had 640MB of RAM, and did just fine  (did I just date myself there? )

Message Edited by Ken Putnam on 02-26-2008 02:38 PM

[TouroIT]

Ken,

      Thank you for your reply. There is another media server in the network that is currently backing up Exchange via the remote agent and the rest of the server's data. Our server data backups have become exceedingly large and we wanted to ensure the Exchange backup would run effectively and out of the way of the server data. That server runs Backup Exec 10 (on its way to 12) and the Backup Exec 12 on Exchange would back up ONLY that Exchange server...nothing else.

[RahulM]

Well if you are currently backing up the Exchange information (IS and the Stores) with BEWS 10 then you will discover a lot of improvement in performance with BEWS 12 as Symantec introduced a new technolgy called the Granular Restore Technology which allows you to restore individual item like messages,contacts etc from an Information Store backup.You will no longer be required to backup the Mailbox and Public Folder stores which was a time consuming process by design.

Best practices for Backup Exec 12 Agent for Microsoft Exchange Server

http://support.veritas.com/docs/298300

[RahulM]

Also if system resources is not a problem then it would not be an issue having BEWS and Exchange on the same server.It will eliminate the network utilization.