Installing Remote Agent on Exchange Servers, AOFO option needed?

[David_Jennings]

I'll be installing 11d clients on our 2 Exchange servers this week and was wondering if it's necessary to install the AOFO on the servers in order for the server to be able to backup the information store as well as mailboxes?  I know the AOFO requires a reboot which I'm trying to avoid unless necessary.

[Ashish_Pandey]

Dear all,

1st of all which exchange are you planning to install exchange 03 or 07.Also please check the pre requisites for exchange 07 before installtion as it is not the same as exchange 03.Also it is not recomended to use AOFO for exchange backup.The backup server uses the VSS in the exchange to take backup of your information store and mailboxs.Also see to it that the VSS service is started in the exchange servers too.

[David_Jennings]

We'd be backing up Exchange 2003 w/ sp1 on a W2k3 EE servers.  We used to have Veritas 10.0 installed locally on the servers but have moved it to a new server that's dedicated to backup.  I'll push a regular agent to the box and double check the settings for VSS.

[Ken_Putnam]

DO NOT  rely on the AOFO for database backups of any kind.  That's  not what it was designed for

To get "hot" backups of any database, you need to purchase and install the appropriate agent. 

(The Database agent includes one RAWS so it's not quite as expensive as it could be )