Best practices in backup environment?

[Shadow1psc]

Hello all,

I work for a SMB of about 30 people with a rather simple (but convoluted, I think) server environment. I took over from a previous admin who did the bare minimum of work, mostly remotely, so there are a few things I'm concerned about when it comes to Backup Exec. First, here is what we are working with -

1 (one) - Server 2008 R2 running Hyper-V

• (Virtual) Server 2003 Domain Controller with all FSMO roles.
• (Virtual) Server 2008 R2 Domain Controller with RDP License Server and all user home folders.
• (Virtual) Server 2008 R2 running monitoring software (Spector CNE).

1 (one) - Server 2008 R2 running Exchange 2010, as well as Backup Exec 2010 R2 (ver. 13.0). The server HDD config is in RAID 1+0 (4x 3 TB hard drives), so luckily we haven't had any major issues.

4 (four) - Server 2008 R2 acting as RDP servers for employees to log in to and do their work on.

My first concern is that Backup Exec is on the Exchange server. The main backup job for Exchange even writes to the same drive the Exchange databse exists on. Duplicate backups write to two external hard drives, alternating weekly. The two domain controllers are backed up with the same method as well. We used to have two Hyper-V machines, but one recently crashed and is better off decomissioned. Instead, I have ordered a new server, and would like to have this setup -

1 (one) - Server 2008 R2 running Hyper-V.

• (Virtual) Server 2008 R2 Domain Controller with PDC, Schema, Domain Name roles. Server will also have WSUS Role. 
• (Virtual) Server 2008 R2 Domain Controller with RiD and IM roles. Server will also have RDP Licensing Role.
• (Virtual) Server 2008 R2 File server (for Profile folders, share drive, email archives, etc).

1 (one) - Server 2008 R2 running Symantec Backup Exec. Will backup locally as well as to external drives.

1 (one) - Server 2008 R2 running Exchange 2010.

As far as a backup strategy, the backup server would take backups of each DC, the File Server, and Exchange. The RDP servers don't matter as far as backing up goes, I'm really just wanting to make sure Exchange is completely backed up, as well as everything on the file server. As our last virtual server failed, I've learned it's quite easy to keep pre-installed virtual machines and just add them to the domain/install roles needed if one crashes. Anyway, if you've read this far, thank you in advance. Probably more info than you guys needed, but my basic question is, is my proposed backup configuration a step in the right direction from what I'm working with? Was it bad to have Backup Exec running on our Exchange server to the same drive as the Exchange Database, or is there a purpose to that set up? 

Again, thanks in advance!

[CraigV]

Hi,

I've used a single server as a media server which also ran Active Directory, Exchange, File and Print. no hassles with this at all from my side.

The issue here would be slow(er) backups that could be expected due to writing to the same drive you're reading from, or even slow Exchange response, be it the actual application, or during maintenance. However, doing it at night should even this out a bit.

Ideally you should be backing up to a different drive which means easier recovery of Exchange should that volume become corrupt. If you can't, then doing what you're doing is fine as long as you have a second copy of the backups, which you say you do.

Thanks!

[Shadow1psc]

I should have mentioned, that the company is pretty much a 9-5, and no one is working on weekends, so full backups are scheduled for late Friday night/early Saturday morning, and differentials on weeknights. As a follow up question to your point about duplicate backups, are the duplicate backups created from the first backup, thus freeing the resources of, say, the Exchange Server after the original backup is done (but the duplicate is working)?

[pkh · Accepted solution]

Although there is no problem putting BE on the Exchange server, but separating them would mean that recovery of the Exchange server is easier. Since your office is basically 9-5, you can save one physical server by putting BE on one of your RDP servers. When you duplicate a backup set, only the backup set is accessed. The source server is not touched