MS Exchange 2010 backup

[lmeyer]

Hello Barry,
I just wondered, if there is a way to use AISBackup to backup an Exchange 2010 server.
Do you have any recommendations?

With best regards

[Barry]

There should be VSS writers in Windows for Exchange 2010.

If this is running on Server 2008 there is a test version of AISBackup that can backup open exclusive files on Server 2008, including Exchnage 2010 (I hope).

Note this is a test version of AISBackup:

http://aiscl.co.uk/dl.php?d=391

Please note that System Protection must be enabled on the drives holding the open exclusive files:

Server 2008:

From Windows Explorer right click the drive e.g. C:\ and choose properties.

Click the Shadow Copies tab.

Choose the drive and click Enable.

Note that the normally hidden boot partition (starts with \\?\Volume{) does not have to be enabled (it is too small to be enabled) as AISBackup backs up the open exclusive 'boot database' using a different technique.

or

Start / Right click Computer / Manage / Storage/Right click Disk Management / All Tasks / Configure Shadow Copies

I keep meaning to write an article (or make a video) on how to use AISBackup to just restore one mailbox in Exchange. I have never done it but I am sure it is possible.

Barry

[lmeyer]

Thank you very much. I will try next week when our Exchange server will ship.
Best regards

[lmeyer]

Hello Barry,

With the new version of AISbackup, I can now backup all my Win2008 R2 servers backup completely, including the Exchange server.

My problem with Exchange server backup is that the log files do not get deleted after a backup as expected. What could be the problem?

With best regards

[Barry]

AISBackup does not delete any log files but does use the VSS method of backup. I hope there is some good documentation available for this issue to be resolved (if you find some documentation about deleting the Exchange log files let us know).

Off topic a little: A 5 year old server 2003 system was recently moved to new hardware by using AISBackup backup and restore this includes a 10GB Exchange database. All was up and running within a few hours, however owing to disk drive controller incompatibilities some remedial work had to be done on the restored server to prevent it blue screening with STOP: 0x0000007B at boot up. The remedial work was done using the AISBackup restore boot CD that enabled the registry on the restored server to be updated.

Here is a Microsoft article about the STOP: 0x0000007B blue screen error:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314082

Barry

[lmeyer]

Hello,
In order to get the log files truncated, one must launch a full backup with Windows Server Backup (which is not the default).
See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libr ... SupBacTech.

AISBackup does not do full backups, but only incremental backups, thats why log files don't get truncated. Maybe you could fool the VSS service telling you're doing a full backup?

My workaround is to schedule a dummy full backup with Windows Server Backup, to keep the size of the database to a reasable size.

Best regards

[Barry]

The backup application is deleting the log files. Even though AISBackup performs incremental backups each backup is a full backup; this is entirely different to the way Microsoft and most other backup programs work.

With regular backups with increments you would have to restore a full backup followed by one or more sequential increments (or one increment in a differential backup). AISBackup manages the backup increments for you to ensure a full restore can be made on any date that a backup was made.

The problem is in that AISBackup does not know about the Exchange 2010 log files so is not deleting them. AISBackup is however backing up using VSS which is required for Exchange 2010. To make this work we need some good documentation about this.

Barry

[berryna]

Note this is a test version of AISBackup: