Using BESR 8.5 for SQL & Exchange Servers

[RobJC]

Hello there,

We currently use Backup Exec 11d and are looking at using BESR to comlement this. I'd like to know what current users think about the products abilities for backing up / restoring transactional servers such as MS Exchange and MS SQL. Info such as: what is the minimum period between snapshots? , after a restore can the Exchange info store or SQL database be mounted without a problem? , can databases be restored individually or is an entire instance restored? , what kind of load does the snapshot place on the source server etc. would be very useful.

Many thanks in advance

Rob

[Jon_R]

BESR is a full system backup and recovery solution. It is designed to backup entire systems in their current operating state and individual drives to allow for quick restore of systems.

After a restore, the databases should be in whatever state they were in just prior to the backup. Exchange servers and Sharepoint servers can be granularly restored using the Granular Restore Option (GRO).

I hope that answers most of your questions.

[aychekay]

Just a quick note that the BESR Granular Restore option requires you to have MS Outlook 2003 or newer installed on your server which is outside of Microsoft's Best Practices for a server running Exchange Server.

[Jon_R]

The recommended setup is to have BESR and BESR GRO installed on a server or workstation in addition to BESR on the Exchange server. This requires two licenses for BESR and one for GRO and allows you to work within the Microsoft Best Practices. To keep costs low, the desktop edition of BESR can be used on a workstation with GRO (GRO does not need to be installed on a Server OS).

[aychekay]

Wow. Thanks for that tidbit of info.

Harlan