Backup Exchange 2003 - Disaster Recovery

[COB]

Every night I use a scheduled nt backup that dumps the Information Store and
System State of my exisintg Exchange 2003 server to .bkf files. The
Information Store is about 9gb and the system state is about 1/2 gb. I then
have a schedule that grabs those 2 files and copies to a different server for
storage outside of the existing mail server.

If my existing server dies, is this all I will need to recover?

[Mark Arnold [MVP]]

On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 09:47:01 -0700, COB

Post by COB
Every night I use a scheduled nt backup that dumps the Information Store and
System State of my exisintg Exchange 2003 server to .bkf files. The
Information Store is about 9gb and the system state is about 1/2 gb. I then
have a schedule that grabs those 2 files and copies to a different server for
storage outside of the existing mail server.
If my existing server dies, is this all I will need to recover?

You should do the two backup jobs separately.

[COB]

Yes they are 2 separate backup jobs about 1/2 hour apart.

Post by Mark Arnold [MVP]
On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 09:47:01 -0700, COB

Post by COB
Every night I use a scheduled nt backup that dumps the Information Store and
System State of my exisintg Exchange 2003 server to .bkf files. The
Information Store is about 9gb and the system state is about 1/2 gb. I then
have a schedule that grabs those 2 files and copies to a different server for
storage outside of the existing mail server.
If my existing server dies, is this all I will need to recover?

You should do the two backup jobs separately.

[Dominik]

Hi,

it depends on the results you expect to get after the restore and on the
storage configuration of your server.

I assume you run the "Full" backup every night but you don't backup the
transactions logs during the day. So if you server fails at let say, 6 pm.
you will lose all emails from the current day as you were able to restore
only server's content from the last night. If it's acceptable for you and
your company, that’s fine. But if it's not, consider backing up your
transaction log files during the day. Another solution for this (and best
practice) is placing the transaction logs on separate storage, which will
not fail in case of problems with the Exchange server. But again, if your
storage with transaction logs fails before so called check point (writing
data to the Exchange database) you will lose part of your email
communication.

In addition to this I'd suggest focusing on re-installation of the Exchange
server after hardware failure as there is a special procedure to restore
Exchange server with the same name in the AD.

Regards
Dominik

Post by COB
Every night I use a scheduled nt backup that dumps the Information Store and
System State of my exisintg Exchange 2003 server to .bkf files. The
Information Store is about 9gb and the system state is about 1/2 gb. I then
have a schedule that grabs those 2 files and copies to a different server for
storage outside of the existing mail server.
If my existing server dies, is this all I will need to recover?

[COB]

We are fortunate that losing one day of emails will not cause our world to
stop - might be inconvenient but ok.

So it is indeed ok to just use ntbackup to backup the information store and
a separate backup of the system state and that should cover us in the case of
disaster. If the server is destroyed, we will then have to rebuild the new
server with the same name and structure in order to reinstall from backup?
Is it possible to restore to a different name and structure? What is the
best way to test the restore?

Post by Dominik
Hi,
it depends on the results you expect to get after the restore and on the
storage configuration of your server.
I assume you run the "Full" backup every night but you don't backup the
transactions logs during the day. So if you server fails at let say, 6 pm.
you will lose all emails from the current day as you were able to restore
only server's content from the last night. If it's acceptable for you and
your company, that’s fine. But if it's not, consider backing up your
transaction log files during the day. Another solution for this (and best
practice) is placing the transaction logs on separate storage, which will
not fail in case of problems with the Exchange server. But again, if your
storage with transaction logs fails before so called check point (writing
data to the Exchange database) you will lose part of your email
communication.
In addition to this I'd suggest focusing on re-installation of the Exchange
server after hardware failure as there is a special procedure to restore
Exchange server with the same name in the AD.
Regards
Dominik

Post by COB
Every night I use a scheduled nt backup that dumps the Information Store and
System State of my exisintg Exchange 2003 server to .bkf files. The
Information Store is about 9gb and the system state is about 1/2 gb. I then
have a schedule that grabs those 2 files and copies to a different server for
storage outside of the existing mail server.
If my existing server dies, is this all I will need to recover?

[Dominik]

Hi,

first of all the configuration of the MS Exchange infrastructure depends on
ActiveDirectory. All pieces of information such as: administrative group’s
names and configuration, info about exchange servers, mailbox server for
given user etc. is stored in it. So if you want to restore the server to the
state, where users do not face problems accessing their mailboxes after
restore, you have to give the same name to the server and restore original
content to that server (storage groups, mailbox stores, mailbox content). Of
course the restore to different server is possible with some limitations.

Please have a look at following guide to get more data about possible
scenarios as there are many of them and you have to choose, which one is the
best option for you
http://technet.microsoft.com/pl-pl/library/bb125070(en-us,EXCHG.65).aspx

Regards
Dominik

Post by COB
We are fortunate that losing one day of emails will not cause our world to
stop - might be inconvenient but ok.
So it is indeed ok to just use ntbackup to backup the information store and
a separate backup of the system state and that should cover us in the case of
disaster. If the server is destroyed, we will then have to rebuild the new
server with the same name and structure in order to reinstall from backup?
Is it possible to restore to a different name and structure? What is the
best way to test the restore?

Post by Dominik
Hi,
it depends on the results you expect to get after the restore and on the
storage configuration of your server.
I assume you run the "Full" backup every night but you don't backup the
transactions logs during the day. So if you server fails at let say, 6 pm.
you will lose all emails from the current day as you were able to restore
only server's content from the last night. If it's acceptable for you and
your company, that’s fine. But if it's not, consider backing up your
transaction log files during the day. Another solution for this (and best
practice) is placing the transaction logs on separate storage, which will
not fail in case of problems with the Exchange server. But again, if your
storage with transaction logs fails before so called check point (writing
data to the Exchange database) you will lose part of your email
communication.
In addition to this I'd suggest focusing on re-installation of the Exchange
server after hardware failure as there is a special procedure to restore
Exchange server with the same name in the AD.
Regards
Dominik

Post by COB
Every night I use a scheduled nt backup that dumps the Information
Store
and
System State of my exisintg Exchange 2003 server to .bkf files. The
Information Store is about 9gb and the system state is about 1/2 gb. I then
have a schedule that grabs those 2 files and copies to a different
server
for
storage outside of the existing mail server.
If my existing server dies, is this all I will need to recover?

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

Post by COB
We are fortunate that losing one day of emails will not cause our
world to stop - might be inconvenient but ok.

Even if you're going to do an offline backup, you must still also do an
online backup (unless you're using circular logging, which is not
recommended). Set that up as a separate job.

Post by COB
So it is indeed ok to just use ntbackup to backup the information
store and a separate backup of the system state and that should cover
us in the case of disaster. If the server is destroyed, we will then
have to rebuild the new server with the same name and structure in
order to reinstall from backup? Is it possible to restore to a
different name and structure? What is the best way to test the
restore?

Post by Dominik
Hi,
it depends on the results you expect to get after the restore and on
the storage configuration of your server.
I assume you run the "Full" backup every night but you don't backup
the transactions logs during the day. So if you server fails at let
say, 6 pm. you will lose all emails from the current day as you were
able to restore only server's content from the last night. If it's
acceptable for you and your company, that's fine. But if it's not,
consider backing up your transaction log files during the day.
Another solution for this (and best practice) is placing the
transaction logs on separate storage, which will not fail in case of
problems with the Exchange server. But again, if your storage with
transaction logs fails before so called check point (writing data to
the Exchange database) you will lose part of your email
communication.
In addition to this I'd suggest focusing on re-installation of the
Exchange server after hardware failure as there is a special
procedure to restore Exchange server with the same name in the AD.
Regards
Dominik

Post by COB
Every night I use a scheduled nt backup that dumps the Information Store and
System State of my exisintg Exchange 2003 server to .bkf files. The
Information Store is about 9gb and the system state is about 1/2 gb. I then
have a schedule that grabs those 2 files and copies to a different server for
storage outside of the existing mail server.
If my existing server dies, is this all I will need to recover?