semi-successful restore from GRT backup of Exchange

[sly_upah]

I was able to backup and restore successfully from Exchange 2003 today. I can do normal backups with GRT, but can only restore to the service account's mailbox (must redirect everything). If i can get the security issues resolved, then GRT would be working correctly as it should. Also, to see all mailboxes, i had to start the backup exec remote agent on the exchange server as the service account with access to the mailboxes.

Also, the GRT doesn't restore any DATA, just the message header.Message was edited by:
sly upah

[Kenneth_Sheppar]

Sly, I would hardly consider black emails following GRT restores as "semi-successful." That's about like saying my bank has my account number and name correct, but all of my money is gone!

Ken

[sly_upah]

the header is 50% more than im used to seeing the restore job come through as. usually it fails with access denied.

[Philip_Pearson]

There is a best practices guide for exchange

http://support.veritas.com/docs/285753

Might be worth a good read first

[Kenneth_Sheppar]

Phillip, it's just too bad that the document you're referring to doesn't make my 4 different installs work correctly with GRT restores.

Ken

[Philip_Pearson]

I know, I do mailbox backups as well, but I have the luxury of a big window and plenty of space on the tape.

[Kenneth_Sheppar]

Oh, I have multiple, large LTO3 drives with plenty of space on my B2D volume as well. But that's not gonna make GRT work.

[Philip_Pearson]

Have you tried giving the media server a good telling off.

Give up on it go back to legacy mailbox until they fix it. (if they fix it)

[Kenneth_Sheppar]

Yep. That's what I've been doing since late November when they released 11d. But the main reason I upgraded to 11d was for GRT to get away from the painful legacy method.

Ken

[sly_upah]

Until yesterday, even legacy backup didnt work until i screwed around with it until i got the results above. at least now something works, albeit not what we upgraded for or what was advertised. haven't restored a file on one of our other servers yet, but im sure that symantec couldn't have screwed that up too....

[Matt_Vaughan]

I have GRT for Exchange working just fine now, but they only work under certain conditions:

The backup jobs must either be on tape or local NTFS B2D's (remote disks will not work).

[sly_upah]

and does it restore messages with actual DATA and not just the headers?

[Kenneth_Sheppar]

I agree, Sly. Simply getting a "good" and error-free GRT backup means nothing. Restoring individual mail items and mailboxes is the true test. I have a huge suspicion that most users don't actually run tests to verify that good, error-free backups can truly be restored.

Ken

[sly_upah]

i have been getting error free backups, but never a good restore. i have to switch to legacy mode (probably next week) to cover exchange because i can just feel that someone will want something restored soon. happened to me on a file server that AOFO crashed on, and i couldn't restart until the next day. took 4 hours to restore 1.5mb of files (yes, thats megabytes). that aside, i am still trying to get a restore from GRT with actual data in a message, not just the header.