BackupExec 2012 a lot of questions

[unarcher]

1) About Domino Agent

How can I restore a single mail in an existing database? There is only an option to restore a database to a point in the past, but I need to overwrite the database completely.

If Tom told me that he deleted a mail by error, I cannot just restore the database somewhere else and copy mail from restored nsf file to actual nsf file because there is no way to change Database ID or restoring to a point in the past and replaying logs. I can just restore the last full backup and the file would be erased a few seconds after restoring it because Domino would find a file with same Database ID

2) Virtualization

- I have got a big file server (1750 Go) which is stored on a 2000 GB VMFS. I would certainly need to extend disk size in the future. Should I use virtualized backup with GRT Restore, or would you use the old way with inside machine backup? I fear for snapshot files growing too much during backup

- GRT. I have got a Windows XP machine with SP3 and I always have following error 

Backup- VMVCB::\\srv-vcenter01.feuillatte.com\VCGuestVm\(DC)CVCNF(DC)\vm\SRV-ETAFI
V-79-57344-38732 - Virtual machine '\(DC)CVCNF(DC)\vm\SRV-ETAFI' does not meet the requirements nece...

But I can see files when launching restore

- Another one is a Windows 2008 R2 machine, which backupexec does not succeed to snapshot. How can I troubleshoot this?

Backup- VMVCB::\\srv-vcenter01.feuillatte.com\VCGuestVm\(DC)CVCNF(DC)\vm\SRV-MONITOR2
V-79-57344-38727 - Backup Exec failed to snap virtual machine '\(DC)CVCNF(DC)\vm\SRV-MONITOR2' and w...
 

3) Deduplication

What's the right way to do? I did the same old good way. 1 full backup every week and incremental other days.

Using deduplication, is this still the way to do it? Maybe doing full backups is not useful anymore?

Deduplication ratio seems rather low after backup of a few server (actually 2.8:1). I had 10:1 when using Vmware Data Recovery. Is there something that I did not understand. I really fear retaining data for a few months, as I dont know if future backups would take as much space for full backups, or would they use really few data as most data is already on deduplication storage?

Thanks for help

[ZeRoC00L]

I can answer your two questions about Virtualization:

I would never extend a VMFS volume. If one volume in the extend fails you looze all your data. Split your data over multipel VMFS volumes (multiple VMDK files). Also if you create a partition larger then 2 TB in windows, it will be a GPT partition. GPT partions are not supported in a vmware GRT backup.

I believe Windows XP is not supported to backup with the AVVI agent, and do a file level restore. Cannot find a technote about it.

[Russ_Perry]

There is no easy way to recover missing messages from a Domino DB backup.  First, any redirected restore of a database is only a file restore so unless your last full DB backup contained the message, redirecting won't give you a DB you can extract from.  Depending on replication and purge settings it may be possible to perform a point in time restore back to when the email existed, extract it, then restore again to the present time... I have asked QA about this in the past and it is something they haven't done testing with so it is suggested to test this with a test mail DB before trying it on a user DB.

Russ

[pkh]

Regarding your Domino question, I normally re-direct the restore of whatever backup that contains the mail to another .nsf file with a different name.  This will allow me to copy the deleted mail to the user's mailbox and then I can delete the restored .nsf file.

If the mail is deleted after the last backup, you would then have to do a point-in-time restore.

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BTW, you have 3 distinct questions.  It would have been better if you post them as 3 separate discussions. It is easier for people to reply and it is easier for you to keep track of the answers.