Granular Exchange backup

[Nigel_Chesher]

Hi all,

I have had a granular backup of our exchange running well for months. Suddenly it stops working!

I am using BE V12.5, SP4 running on Windows Server Standard 2003 SP2. The exchange is 2007, running on Windows Server Enterprise 2003 64bit, in a cluster environment.

The original problem was that that job failed with 'can't log on to MAPPI' error, even though a credential test passed.

I created a new account which worked for a few weeks, then did the same.

I recreated the job but pointed it at the IP address instead of the server name, and appears to work as completes with a result of Successful 100%.... but.... I am unable to do individual mail restores. The exchange information store file is missing from the backup! All I have is the log file!

Can anyone help resolve this issue as I have not had a true good backup for a over a moth now.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions

[Sush---]

Could you confirm that the Remote Agent on the Exchange serve is updated to the same version as the Remote Agent on the Media server.

As Exchange is in cluster you will have to update the Remote agent on both the Exchange servers.

Also my sugestion would be to run Live update first on the Media server to install the HF released after SP4 and then push the Remote agent to the Exchange server.

Thanks,

-Sush...

[JK81]

Hello Nigel,

I am assuming that you are facing the issue as mentioned in this doc :

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH64968

The solution is also mentioned in it.

Furthermore, for the backups which are already done and showing you only logs folder can be restored from the Disk. All you have to do is the duplicate the Exchange IS backup job to Disk by creating a backup disk folder. Once the job is duplicated, you shall be able to see your Mailbox dabases as well as PF and logs. You can also perform individual mailbox restore if GRT option was used in the backup job.

Hope this helps you.

Regards

[Nigel_Chesher]

Thanks Kunj,

That Tech note appears to reference the same issues, but I note that its refering to SP2, and the issue only started recently. I have tried the duplicate job that you mention, but still no mailboxes to restore!!

Hi Shsh,

I did run live update and re-install the agent, though not for last week. I have SP4 with Hotfix 255944, 357378, 355337.

Thanks

[JK81]

Hello Nigel,

I am not sure with what error did your restore after you duplicated it to disk? Can you post the error.

Above the "MonadRpcTimeout" registry value, I am sure it should work. Have you edited this registry key with value 3600? Are you able to see the Database in your present backups after creating this?

In backup job properties was the GRT option enabled, when you had performed the backup?

[JK81]

Please ensure that the version of Beremot.exe is same on both backup server and Exchange server.

[Nigel_Chesher]

Hi Kunj,

No error. Didn't get  that far! The duplicate job completed successfully, but when I attempted to browse the Information stores they where still missing!

Adding the registry value made no difference.

Yes, GRT option is enabled.

Remote agent is latest on the server.

Thanks

[CraigV]

Hi Nigel,

GRT backups to tape won't allow you to browse the Information Store. It would show up looking like a flat file.

You would need to duplicate to disk in order to see your individual mailboxes. Anything below BE 2010 had to work like this when doing GRT to tape, and this was improved with BE 2010 where you can now do GRT restores directly from tape.

If you don't know how to duplicate to disk, follow the article below...

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/restoring-exchange-or-individual-mailboxesitems-usi...

Thanks!

[Nigel_Chesher · Accepted solution]

Hi CraigV,

I have managed to get things working again, not sure how, but I am using a different backup server that I have available and after applying updates/reboots and anything else I could think of, it managed to 'see' the information store correctly. Means I have to move other jobs around, but thats a small price to pay!

Hate to say this, but I have always been able to do individual email restores from tape, except for the instance above which promted this thread!

Only ever had a problem when the inofrmation store was too large to be staged. This was solved when we upgraded to 2007 by creating lots of stores and keeping each to a reasonable size. Total exchange backup is about 580Gb, the largest Information store is about 60GB.

Thanks to all who replied.

Nigel