exchange 2003 recovery

[eduzav]

Hy, can I use GRT feature in full exchange restore using tapes backup?

I have backup exec 2010 r2 installed and I did a full backup from exchange 2003 (two storage group).

I need to restore some particular mailbox or individual messages.

What is the best strategy using tapes backup? I can not use B2D!!

Thanks

[Kiran_Bandi]

can I use GRT feature in full exchange restore using tapes backup?

For that i think it has to be backed up by using GRT.

need to restore some particular mailbox or individual messages.

For this GRT is the choice..

[Kiran_Bandi]

For a small environment Daily Full backup with incremental online backups at midday will do the job for you.

In large environments weekly full backups, and incremental backups taking most frequently in a day will be a better option while considering log file growth.

More Backup strategies you can find in BE 2010 admin guide...

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH77887

Best practices for backing Exchange 2003 better explained in the below mentioned document..

http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO21796

[eduzav]

The beadmin manual says (page 314)

You cannot restore individual mailboxes and messages if both of the following conditions exist:
■ The incremental or the differential
backup method was used.
■ The destination was a tape device.

So If I'm doing tape backup I can not restore individual mailboxes and messages, is that correct????

[Kiran_Bandi]

GRT is enabled by default for backups for the following agents:

1) Active Directory Recovery Agent

2)Agent for Microsoft Exchange Server

3)Agent for Microsoft Hyper-V

4)Agent for Microsoft SharePoint

5)Agent for VMware Virtual Infrastructure

You can use the Agent for Microsoft Exchange Server to restore an email message from a backup without having to restore the entire mailbox.

As you want to use tape device for backups, before performing restore make sure that you have sufficient disk space to restore full backup set. Because BE copies the entire backup set or sets to the staging area even for restoring a single mail box. The staging area must have enough disk space for the entire backup set or sets from which you want to restore an individual item. 

Backup Exec deletes the data from the staging area when the restore job is complete.

[Mahesh_Roja]

 Try these steps

The following best practices are for backing up Exchange 2003 individual mailboxes and public folders if you cannot use Granular Recovery Technology (GRT):

• Use the Exchange System Manager utility to adjust the deletion settings in the properties for each Information Store. Retain deleted items for a period of time so that you can recover the items rather than restore them. Refer to your Microsoft Exchange Server documentation for details.
• Perform all individual mailbox and public folder backup operations as separate jobs to isolate potential problems and recover data more quickly.
• Enable single-instance backup for message attachments.
• For Exchange 2000/2003, ensure that the most current versions of the Cdo.dll and Mapi32.dll files are in the Exchange directory \bin or \System32.. For Exchange 2007, when you install the Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) and the Collaboration Data Object package, these files are installed in the \SysWOW64 directory.
• Run full backups of mailboxes or public folders on a regular basis. Supplement the full backups with incremental or differential backups to keep backup run time to a minimum.
• Do not substitute mailbox backups for backups of the entire Information Store. Continue to back up the Information Store. You cannot perform a complete restore of the Exchange server from a mailbox backup.
• Exclude unwanted or unnecessary folders and subfolders such as Deleted Items or Sent Items from the backup. When you create the backup job, use the Include/Exclude option to exclude these files.
• Do not back up the special system mailboxes that the Exchange server creates.
• Select public folders for backup from only one Exchange server to avoid backing up the same data multiple times. Most public folder data is replicated among multiple Exchange servers.

The following best practices are for recovering data for all versions of Exchange Information Store:

• Be aware of the effect of the Restore all transaction logs; do not delete existing transaction logs option. After an operation runs with this option enabled, transactions in existing transaction logs are applied when you start or mount the Information Store database. If those transactions include any deletions that occurred after the backup ran, those deletions are also applied. As a result, the very data that you intend to recover may be deleted. In this situation, enable the Purge existing data and restore only the databases and transaction logs from the backup sets option. This option discards the Exchange data that was generated after the backup. Alternatively, you can use a second recovery server. You can also use the Recovery Storage Group feature in Exchange 2003/2007 or Exchange 2010 recovery database to perform the restore.
• If you must use the Microsoft Eseutil utility to repair the database, ensure that the recovery server has sufficient disk space. You may need as much as 125% of the actual size of the Information Store database. You can also specify another disk or volume as a temporary location on which to run the Eseutil utility. Refer to your Microsoft documentation for details.

The following best practices are for restoring data for Exchange Server 2000 or later:

• Ensure that you specify a valid temporary location on the Exchange server for log and patch files. The temporary location must have enough space to accommodate the transaction logs that you want to recover.
•  Read the Restore.env file if issues occur when you mount a database after a restore operation. Information in this file can help you troubleshoot issues. To read the file, run the Eseutil utility with the /cm switch. Refer to your Microsoft documentation for details.
•  Select the Commit after restore completes option when you configure a restore job so that the database can be mounted. Run the Eseutil utility with the /cc switch to perform a manual hard recovery. Refer to your Microsoft documentation for details.
• Ensure the following if you restore to an Exchange server other than the source server:
• The recovery server is in a different Active Directory forest than the source server.
• The recovery server has the same Organization and Administrative Group names as the source server.
• The storage groups and databases already exist on the recovery server, and have the same names as the original storage groups or databases.

The following best practices are for restoring individual mailboxes and public folders for Exchange 2000/2003:

• If you redirect the restore of individual mailbox or public folder items to an alternate location, ensure that the mailbox or public folder already exists.
• If there are problems with a restore operation, select specific mail messages for restore.
• If errors about permissions occur, try to restore to the mailbox that is associated with the Backup Exec logon account that you used for the restore. An example of a permissions error is Access denied.
• After a successful restore of public folders, you may need to rehome some or all of the folders. Refer to your Microsoft documentation for more information.
•  If the error Unable to attach occurs, on the Exchange server, run Fixmapi.exe. Then, retry the operation.
• If you cannot attach to the mailboxes node when Outlook is installed on the Exchange server, then stop the Exchange and Remote Agent services. Run Fixmapi.exe, and then on the Microsoft Web site, look up any return codes. If there are no return codes, restart the services and retry the operation.
•  If you redirect a mailbox restore to an Active Directory in a different forest than the Exchange server, you must associate an external account with the mailbox. Refer to your Microsoft documentation for details.
• If you redirect public folder data, ensure that the Backup Exec user account has the Owner role on both the source and destination public folders. Refer to your Microsoft documentation for details.

The following are best practices to plan for disaster recovery of an Exchange Server:

• Perform tests periodically to ensure that disaster recovery and data recovery scenarios produce the expected results.
• Become familiar with the Microsoft documentation for Exchange database management, disaster plans, and recovery.
• Document the Exchange Server configuration in detail. Document any subsequent changes. Note all hotfixes and service packs that are applied.

[eduzav]

I analyzed my environment and I don't have enough space on source servers for full restore with tape backup modality so I thought the following configuration:

First, the most type of restorations are of individual messages.

Strategy

-Do a B2D full backup weekly and incremental backup Daily on SAN storage (retention: 6 days). I don't have enought storage space for that folder.

-Do a weekly backup to tape of B2D folder ( retention: 28 days).

What do you think?

Thanks

[Kiran_Bandi]

According to your storage limitations, this configuration will be the better one.

Plan your retensions carefully. 

According to your strategy at any point you will have One week full and incrementals on your B2D folder and 4 weeks Full and Incrementals on your tape.

[eduzav]

Hy people, I take again that project.

I'm doing some testings and I can't use GRT on incremental jobs.

Results

GRT complete backup on B2D is OK.

GRT incremental backup on B2D doesn't work to me (is that supported?)

Doubts

GRT complete backup on tape isn't supported 

GRT incrementa backup on tape isn't supported 

Thanks

[Lively]

I do not belive GRT will work on direct to tape jobs.

For the Incremental B2D2T jobs it will work, but the Exchange job has to be part of a policy.  So if you currently have a job for a full backup and a job for an incremental backup, it will not work.  You will need to create a Policy job that has the full and incremental job settings.

[Kiran_Bandi · Accepted solution]

If you create full, differential, or incremental backups, GRT-enabled jobs have the following restrictions:

1) The full, differential, and incremental job templates must be part of a policy.

2) The destination device must be a backup-to-disk folder.

3) The backup sets from the full, differential, and incremental jobs must be on the same volume.

You cannot restore individual mailboxes and messages if incremental or differential backup method was used and the destination was a tape device.

[eduzav]

I've just configured a policy with:

 -one full complete exchange template to a b2d folder

 -one incremental exchange template to the same b2d folder

 -one selection list with a test information store with 1 mailbox

First I ran the full exchange job and then I did some changes on the mailbox (send and receive one mail) and then I ran the incremental job but the backup set doens't contain data.

 I attached some images of that process.

Thanks

[eduzav]

I found the problem. The media set was an incorrect overwrite configuration so the full backup was been overwriting so the incremental failed.

Thanks for yours help.

[Ken_Putnam]

I'm coming in a little late to this, but  I haven't see an answer to your question

"can I use GRT feature in full exchange restore using tapes backup?"

The answer is "you should NOT use GRT for disaster recover, only Stores backups",  since GRT completely bypasses single instance storage

That is: if you sent a 10MB attachment to 10 users, Exchange stores it as a single attachment with 10 pointers.

But if you restore via GRT you would have 10 10MB attachents, a difference of +9MB of storage required

Multiply by many emails  and (possibly) larger  attachments and you can see where GRT restores should not be used in DR situations

(You can use a GRT enabled tape, just don't restore all the mailboxes individually)