Backup strategies for Exchange
Backup Exec incorporates online, nondisruptive Exchange database protection as part of everyday backup routines, which increases the chance of data recovery and minimizes data loss without inhibiting daily activity. Backup Exec protects Exchange data, including the individual database, mailbox, and public folder with full, copy, incremental, and differential backups.
To decide which backup methods to use, consider the following:
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In small office environments with relatively small numbers of messages passing through the system, a daily full backup provides good data protection and the quickest recovery. If log file growth becomes an issue, consider using incremental online backups at midday to provide an added recovery point and manage the log file growth for you automatically.
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In large environments, incremental backups should be used to provide more frequent recovery point options throughout the day and to manage log file growth. Many organizations run full backups on a weekly basis, preferring to run incremental backups throughout the week to keep backup run time to a minimum. The trade-off with this technique occurs at recovery time when you must recover from the full backup and from each incremental backup as well.
What works best for you is based on the size of your environment, the number of transactions processed each day, and the expectations of your users when a recovery is required.
Consider the following backup strategies:
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Run full backups with the option to enable the restore of individual items selected so that you can restore individual mail messages and folders without restoring the entire database.
Depending on your environment, run full backups as follows:
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As frequently as possible, no less than once a day.
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Daily with differential backups used at regular periods throughout the day.
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Every few days (no less than weekly) with frequent incremental backups in between each full backup.
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Run Exchange backup jobs separately from other backup jobs.
In addition to backing up Exchange databases, you should also back up the following on a regular basis:
Table: Backup selections for Exchange configuration data
| Recommended backup selections for configuration data | Description |
|---|---|
| File system | Back up folders and drives containing files for Windows and Exchange. Usually, this is the root drive C:\, but may be different in each environment. |
| Note: Back up the C:\ drive, but do not back up the virtual drive that is created by Exchange, if this virtual drive exists in your environment. It is intended only to provide Windows Explorer access to the Exchange data, but all file system functions may not be replicated. Backup and restore operations are not recommended or supported. | |
| Windows registry | Back up the registry by running a full backup. |
| System State and/or Shadow Copy Components | Select System State and run a full backup to back up the following\: |
| - The Internet Information Service (IIS) metabase | |
| - The Windows registry | |
| See About selecting data to back up . | |
| If the entire server must be restored, you must restore both System State and Shadow Copy Components. | |
| Active Directory | To back up Active Directory, select System State on the domain controllers and run a full backup. |
| When there are configuration changes on the Exchange Server database, such as when objects are added, modified, or deleted, back up the Active Directory on the domain controllers. | |
| Note: Spread multiple domain controllers throughout each domain for efficient Active Directory replication, and so that if one domain controller fails, redundancy is still provided. |
Note: Configure an Information Store backup for which the Granular Recovery Technology (GRT) feature is enabled to restore individual mailboxes, mail messages, and public folders.
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