Importing legacy backup-to-disk folders with Backup Exec 2012

[tombpcnpa]

I've searched through these forums and elsewhere on the Internet but can't seem to find an answer to my problem.

I have LTO 3 tapes that have Exchange 2003 backups (with granular recovery enabled).  These were created with Backup Exec 10.1
These tapes have been duplicated to disk using my current version of Backup Exec (2010 R3).

I've then copied the duplicated files to another server running Backup Exec 2012 and used the Import Legacy backup-to-disk tool to add them to its storage.

After running a catalog and inventory on the storage I've tried to carry out an Exchange restore job, choosing to restore individual mailbox items.
The problem occurs when attempting to select data to restore - there isn't any listed under the First Storage Group for that date.  When I amend the job to restore the entire Exchange server database, I can see the set of files listed under the correct date, but they are shown as having zero bytes.

When I look at the details of the storage it also lists the First Storage Group as being zero bytes.  I have checked the folder that I copied the files into and it correctly lists the bkf file as being 25GB and the two associated cfg files as 2KB.

Does anyone know if Backup Exec 2012 is supposed to be able to import legacy backup-to-disk folders that were created in Backup Exec 10.1?
If so, then can anyone suggest what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks.

[Sym-cr]

Check the below mentioned links:

Restore Selections for Exchange Mailboxes backed up utilizing Backup Exec 11d 7170 Granular Restore Technology (GRT) may not display all items.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH50358

The restore selections in Backup Exec reflect a "0 KB" size for Exchange backup sets even when the backup has completed successfully.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH59604

Also, it's not recommended to copy or move the bkf files to a different location manually.

Reasons why backing up or copying backup to disk data files is NOT recommended.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH176061

Hope it helps...Thanks!!

[CraigV]

The Tn below will tell you how to import the B2D:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH187735

Thanks!

[CraigV]

...I am unsure what this has to do with the query to import legacy B2D? It's most likely because of this that the OP cannot restore...

Thanks!

[tombpcnpa]

Thanks for the suggestions so far. 

Am I correct in thinking that I should be able to run a Duplicate Backup Set job on my Backup Exec 2010 server (to a new backup-to disk folder) to get the backup job off tape.  The backup-to-disk folder used is local to the Backup Exec 2010 server.

I then copy that folder to the Backup Exec 2012 server and run the Import Legacy Backup to Disk job.  There shouldn't be any problems with permissions should there?
 

[CraigV]

...If it is on media written by BE 2010, then you can restore directly from there using BE 2012.

Otherwise, you can restore the information from tape to disk and copy it onto the location you want.

You can try your method and see if this results in the *.bkf files, and then use the TN I provided to import the legacy B2D into BE 2012.

Thanks!

[pkh · Accepted solution]

1. BE 2012 supports Exchange 2003 SP1. Do you know whether the source Exchange 2003 is SP1 2. Although this may not be the cause of your problem, what is the version of Exchange that you are trying to restore to? You would not be able to restore Exchange 2003 mailboxes to newer versions of Exchange

[tombpcnpa]

Thanks for the input pkh.

1.The backup source would have been Exchange 2003 with at least SP1 as this was the base version.

2. I'm not trying to restore directly into Exchange but to use the restore to PST function of Backup Exec 2012.  I'm a bit confused as to what versions of Exchange you should be able to directly restore back to, this is why I'm trying to utilise the new PST feature.  If anyone has links to what versions of Exchange are supported by different versions of Backup Exec in regard to restores I'd be grateful.

For what it's worth I'm currently running the following components, each on seperate servers, with the production Backup Exec 2010 server being physica,l with access to the LTO tape library.  The other 2 servers are virtual.

Server 2008 R2 SP1 running Exchange 2010 SP3 update rollup 6
Server 2008 R2 SP1 running Backup Exec 2010 R3 rev. 5204 1270
Server 2008 R2 SP1 running Backup Exec 2012 rev. 1798 1364

[pkh]

The SCL of the various versions of BE is given here https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/adminguides-scls-hcls-backup-exec-all-versions See page 44 of the BE 2012 SCL for what is required for restore to PST

[tombpcnpa]

I've followed up some of the suggestions here and have a better idea of what's possible, but I still can't find an answer to the following question:

Can Backup Exec 2012 restore Exchange 2003 data to a PST file from a backup created with Backup Exec 10.1?

When I catalog any imported storage in BE 2012 that was created with BE 10 I end up with Incompatible and Unsupported folders created within my Catalog folder.  When I catalog imported storage created with BE 12.5 these folders are not created and the restore job is successful.

I move/reset the catalog location between each attempt at importing storage so I can see exactly when the files and folder are created.  I've also tried unselecting the option to use storage-based catalogs, but am getting nowhere.

Can anyone help?

[CraigV · Accepted solution]

...it should be able too. The BE 2012 SCL should state this.

However, if you can't catalog the BE 10.1 data correctly, then this won't work anyway.

Do you have the option to load BE 12.5 on another server and restore using that instead?

Thanks!

[pkh]

I think you should log a support case with Symantec for this problem.

[VJware · Accepted solution]

Maybe this is happening due to the fact, GRT wasn't available in BE 10 and the indvidual mailboxes were backed up in a different manner (and separately) from the Information Store backup.

[pkh]

In the initial post, the user said that GRT is enabled during the backup.

[VJware]

The user also mentioned BE 10.1 and i don't think BE 10 had the GRT option available. (GRT was introduced with BE 11 onwards) It did have the legacy method though.

[pkh]

You said that GRT is enabled.  If so, then you should see a .img folder in the disk storage.  If you don't see a .img folder, then the backup is probably done using brick level backup.

[Colin_Weaver · Accepted solution]

As well as:

Backup 10.x not providing GRT backups so Exchange was protected either with Brick Level or Information Store only backup jobs (or both for best practice) - this basically means no restore to PST or GRT to Exchange server possible and you may have to build an Exchange 2003 recovery server to restore for an Information Store backup (if you have one)

If you did do a brick level backup originally then you will have to use an older vsion of Backup Exec to do the restore (where version of BE will need to be the last to support Brick Level backups) as when we released BE 2012 we could not maintain the restore capability for older unsupported configurations and I suspect Brick level may well be caught by this limitation.

I also have a concern that:

The way you have imported the disk backup sets created on one sever into a completely different server might have caused a conflict of media naming and be confusing the catalogs. Basically for this kind of copy between servers you may need to copy to a media server that has never run any backups to disk so that then you avoid any media identity conflicts. As such if the server you had copied to is a production media server running other jobs this may be affecting you.

[tombpcnpa]

Thanks to everyone who's recently replied to my question.I think I've got a handle on the situation now.

The backups created with version 10.1 used brick level backup and so can't be restored to PST using version 2012. 

We are currently using Backup Exec 2010 R3 in our production environment.  The Backup Exec 2012 server I was using for PST restores was a seperate install with no scheduled jobs, so catalog errors shouldn't be a problem.  I can successfully restore files from backups created with 10.1 to an alternate location on that server so restores work, just not Exchange to PST ones.

I did use both Information Store and Brick Level backups for my 10.1 backup jobs. 

We've moved to Exchange 2010 and haven't left any older version of Exchange running, so I think I'll need to create an Exchange 2003 server and all of the related infrastructure in a lab environment to be able to restore backups made with 10.1