Bricklayer Backup Speed

[Todd]

Hello,

I was wondering what the speed of other peoples bricklayer backup from exchange was like.

We have about 1500 mailboxes and the throughput is 17 to 20 megabits/sec.

[Ken_Putnam]

Sounds about right.  You have to understand how BrickLevel backups are done (on v10d and below  v11d has a new approach)

BackupExec logs into Exchange as the BackupExec Service account, then attaches to and "reads" each item in each select mailbox using standard MAPI calls (just as if you were doing it from a workstation)  This is EXTREMELY  inefficient

It is a little dated by now, but most of  http://mail.tekscan.com/nomailboxes.htm   is still valid for v10 and below

Since you should not use mailboxes for Disaster Recovery anyway, you may want to limit them to a few high profile users

[Todd]

Thanks for the reply. What are big companies doing to backup mailboxes at the bricklayer?

[Hywel_Mallett]

My mailbox backup philosophy is at Backing up Exchange mailboxes

[Robert_Schmidt_]

"What are 'big' companies doing?"

Size of company isn't really the issue - it's more nature of your business and regulatory compliance.

Exchange gives end-users the ability to recover deleted items; train them.

Also, why automatically empty 'deleted items'? - manual empty or 'prompt on exit' are options.

I agree with Ken:

"Since you should not use mailboxes for Disaster Recovery anyway, you may want to limit them to a few high profile users"

We backup ONLY stores and flush logs. I'm backing up for disaster recovery/business continuity - when I have top re-create an entire Exchange system. I'm not so fussed about individual mailboxes. I have my job still.

[Todd]

Thanks for the advice but Iam looking for someone that is  trying to backup the bricklayer with 1500 or more users, not do a workaround. It just seems impossible to backup that many users and I want to know if it can be done or if someone has done it in a respectable time frame. I am backing up around 140GB, and it takes about 40 hours. The backup is a full to tape. Throughput is 35 mebabits/sec.

[Ken_Putnam]

v11d has what they call GRT - Granular Restore Technology

You backup the stores, and can restore individual items from that.  But it has problems of it's own (it is after all a 1.0 release )

[Robert_Schmidt_]

Todd - I backup (Exchange) of approx 130Gb, 350 mailboxes.

I am still using 10.0d.

Backing up Information Stores with verify (but NOT mailboxes) takes approx 1hr 45min.

Your overall throughput when you include mailboxes is NOT unusual.

That's one reason why I don't do them - it blows the backup window out for anything that follows.

Also, I have had no real need to recover an individual message - Exchange/Outlook gives the end-user the ability to recover deleted items.

Also, when someone leaves the org, we use ExMerge to extract that mailbox to a *.pst and archive that. So, when historical data from that person is needed, we give the person access to that *.pst.

One strategy for you might be to separate Information Store backup and mailbox backup. After all, if your Exchange server is 'lost', it will be the IS store backup (done with 'flush transaction logs') that you need to re-create your Exchange system. Maybe IS backups through the week, and a maibox backup on the weekend.

We discussed a lot here about mailbox vs/and Information Store. Do read what is in the BE admin guide. Also, look carefully though the event logs on your Exchange server - around the times of your Exchange maintenance and all the events generated as an IS store (with 'flush logs') runs; I'm sure you will realise how important this is.

In the end, we saw IS backup not as a 'work around', but the "proper" way to back up Exchange.

I will definitely be investigating the Granular Recovery of 11d - but not at this early stage of the product life; let someone else sort out the bugs!

Cheers

[D_B_5]

Todd,

As noted above, a mailbox backup uses MAPI, adn that is the underlying bottleneck, not Backup Exec itself. 

Depending on what you want to backup specifically in Mailboxes, you could use the ** wildcard to ONLY include the Inbox.  Similarly you could use ** to EXCLUDE things like deleted items, or sent item, etc.  Either option will significantly cut down the backup window.  A full mailbox backup include all the calendar, tasks, contacts, etc so that is a lot of fat in the backup you may or may not care about.

Of course, 11D is the fastest way to get mailbox info since it is included int he database backup.