Question re vmware Exchange / SQL backups

[BirtyBassett]

Suppose we had a folder within vSphere called "Messaging servers" which contained multiple Exchange HUB, CAS, EDGE and MBX servers. We would like to back up these servers at the same time.  If we created a policy that was based upon the name of this folder so that it backed up everything within this folder, what would happen if, within this policy we selected the "Enable Exchange Protection" and "Truncate logs" option?  Would the policy be intelligent enough to know that these options only apply to the MBX servers?  Would the non-MBX servers backup as normal?

In the same scenario suppose that the MBX server DB and logs are on seperate volumes, would a backup of this server include all the volumes along with all files & folders (e.g. database.edb) on the server or would we manually have to exclude the DB and log volumes idf we have the Exchange Protection options enabled?

Thanks in advance. 

[inn_kam]

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/backup-exchange-sql-active-directory-vmware

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/netbackup-75-sqlexchange-database-backup

[BirtyBassett]

Whilst I am grateful for your reply I don't entirely see how those threads answer my questions.

Regards,

Graham

[Andrew_Madsen]

No it is not intelligent enough to determine which VMs are the DAG, the hub, the CAS, or MDX servers so if you had a single policy you would have some partial successes since it would fail on truncate etc.

I would like to point out something however, and it is a technicality, you will not be able to "Backup at the same time" all the machines anyway. This is because of the time lapse between when clients are being backed up. Your job kicks off and snapshots are created in no particular order and the times may vary especially if you have more clients then the maximum jobs for the STU or in global settings for the environment. Remember when maximum jobs comes into play it is determined by all the jobs running not just the jobs from that policy.

[BirtyBassett]

Thanks Andrew - most helpful. I also understand your comments regarding backing up at the same time.

Do you have any thoughts on my question regarding backing up the whole MBX server whilst at the same time performing a "Exchange backup"?