Exchange Mailboxes - best practices

[Alexandre_Rappo]

Hi,
we are backing up the mailboxes as well as the exchange DB.
I was wondering the best practices as it's a slow backup (seems like NBU talks to Exchange...) when it comes to back up the mailboxes.

We are currently doing a MPX + MPS backup over 25 backup selections from Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes:\* to Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes:\*

the speed is really poor.

Do you have any ideas on how to impro...

[Alasdair_McQuir]

Backing up exchange mail boxes ( a brick level backup ) is really slow and painfull.

The only quick way to backup exchange is to backup the database.

We use a product called quest recovery manager for exchange to do individual mailbox restores.

We backup each storage group as a separate stream and using LTOgen 1 drives we can get 20mbps per stream.

The mailbox backups are so slow they would never complete.

[Gerald_W__Gitau]

First of all, you need to determine if there is any buffer related problems. Enable the bptm logs and scan for any delays....eg...waited for full buffers...waited for empty buffer...etc. If you discover any anormalies then you need to fine tune the buffers e.g

bptm log: Write buffer information

16:10:13 <2> write_data: waited for full buffer 4111 times, delayed 8701 times

This indicates less data is being received from the network/disk than the tape can handle. You can reduced the buffer size (SIZE_DATA_BUFFERS) but make sure not to reduce below the default values. For windows system this is normally 64K

Also remember the buffer sizes are set in bytes and not Kbytes! If you are not sure, read the manuals first.

Remember, this settings may also affect your restore time.

[Chia_Tan_Beng]

> We use a product called quest recovery manager for
> exchange to do individual mailbox restores.
>

Hi Alasdair,

Can elaborate more on the above? How to you restore individual mailbox using Quest? Do you mean using recovery stroage group to restore the database first and use quest for selective mailbox merging? (pardon me for my limited knowledge in Exchange)

Thanks.

[Alasdair_McQuir]

Its been a while since I have had to do this but here goes.

Quest can emulate an exchange server.

So we have a server dedicated to quest, (VMware servers work as well) Install certain basic parts of exchange ( not the full product ) and quest onto this server.

Quest then has hooks into NBU and exchange, then basicaly it redirects a restore to your quest recovery server.

This can be a full mailbox or individual mails, these can then be merged back into exchange again.

To my knowledge you do not need to use a recovery storage group.

[AKopel]

My recommendation:
Don't do mailbox level backups. We only do DB level and use the "Recover Storage Group" to recover mailboxes or mailbox information. Unless you have to restore mailboxes everyday (I hope not) the RSG should be good enough.

Aaron