NetBackup for Exchange

[liuyang]

Hi, I have a few questions regarding NetBackup for Exchange. My master server is NBU 7.0.1 on Windows 2008 R2 and Exchange is MS Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows 2003 R2 SP2 (64bit). My questions are as follows:

1.       If I do not want to use GRT, is there a way to restore individual mail box? I see there is backup selection which is named as exchange mailbox. Is it for individual mailbox recovery?

2.       If I do not want to use GRT, what can I restore and how? I read the documents but it is a bit confusing. Seems I can restore the mailbox database. Then can I restore mailbox database to the same location? Or I need to create a recovery database to restore to? Do I need to dismount the production mailbox database first in order to restore it?

3.       If I use GRT,  can I restore a mailbox when mailbox database is online?

Thanks.

[RiaanBadenhorst · Accepted solution]

Hi,

1. You can backup the mailboxes using MAPI and specifying Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes:\
   You can then restore individual mailboxes or items within mailboxes. You need to configure a user account with certain permissions in exchange. See the admin guide for details.
2. If you do not use GRT you can restore the entire database to its orginal location, or you can restore the entire database to a recovery storage group, and then select mailboxes within that to restore. You do not need to dismount the production store when doing so.
3. Yes, you can restore a mailbox or items within the mailbox when the production store is online, in fact, it has to be online to do the restore of individual items

Hope that helps

Here is the link to the exchange guide http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH135528

[liuyang]

Hi Riaan, thanks a lot for the information.

I have another question: I just want to do a full backup of Microsfot Exchange Information Store. Do I need to enable snapshot?

[RiaanBadenhorst]

Hi,

If you're running EXCH 2010 you have to select "perform snapshot", for other versions of EXCH it is not required unless you're actually looking to perform a snapshot via some snapshot provider, like Storage Foundation, EMC, etc.

[liuyang]

Thanks a lot for the answers.

I have a few other questions:

1. If I enable MAPI to backup mailbox, how does it backup? I heard from a friend that each mailbox will use one stream. In my environment, there are 1000+ email accounts. Will I see 1000+ backup jobs running during exchange mailbox backup?

2. If I enable MAPI to backup mailbox, during restore, can I restore the individual mailbox to its orginal location or I need to restore it to another location first?

Thanks.

[RiaanBadenhorst]

Hi,

No, it doesn't create a lot of streams, it actually creates only one. This can some times cause the backup to run very long, so you might want to split the mailboxes (a-m and m-z) by adding a wild card entry to the file list, and add a NEW_STREAM between them.