Just do an Exchange aware backup with Ntbackup -- it'll take care of
everything that needs to be done, including purging the logs. Again, Brett,
I urge you to read carefully the Disaster Recovery whitepaper and to
practice the techniques in a lab.
http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/whitepaper.aspx?&scid=40&docid=264020
What's the point of this offline Acronis backup? It doesn't accomplish
anything that a good backup doesn't, takes up a lot of time, and exposes
your server to risks. [1] If all you want to do is recover deleted emails,
use Deleted Item Retention. Set it for 2 weeks or two months, or whatever
your setup is comfortable with. Then run the dumpster reg hack on your
clients, either before or after the oops.
[1] Acronis and Ghost are great products, and I use them, but they've been
known to thrash a drive occasionally or to produce unrestorable backups.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brett Fernicola" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Exchange Discussions" <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2007 2:07 PM
Subject: RE: I need some advice on a good Exchange Backup - Restore
Solution.
Thanks a lot guys,
That exmerge tool works great, I just ran a test with it and was able to
extract a users mailbox to a pst. I think I got all the tools and
knowedge
I need know to be pretty dangerous with Exchange.
Any tips or anything I should know about just backing my one primary
storage
group. Can I just backup the one large database, or do I need to back up
transaction logs, or any other files as well for it to mount cleany in a
temp recovery storage group. My goal now is to have a separate scheduled
Acronis Job to first shut down exchange and do a quick backup of just the
contents of my one Storage Group. This way when a user deletes an email
from Imap he needs I can recovery it with this technique.
Thanks.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Knoch
Jr., James W
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2007 4:22 PM
To: Exchange Discussions
Subject: RE: I need some advice on a good Exchange Backup - Restore
Solution.
Not sure if Acronis supports it (NTBackup does), but if you have enough
disk space you can create a temporary Recovery Storage Group to restore
your database to in order to aid your recovery. You can then just
restore the database you need, mount it and then export the contents out
for that mailbox. You can use then use exmerge to export to a PST file
or merge the contents with the "active" mailbox.
These should help with using Recovery Storage Groups:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/824126
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=64841
I do suggest you investigate using Deleted Item Recovery in conjunction
with your backup plan. We have a policy in place that keeps deleted
items for 14 days (set to automatically purge expired items after a
backup). This is very handy in cases like you mentioned (in fact it
happened this week). You can then just log into the mailbox with an
Outlook client on computer that has the Recover Deleted Items registry
in place and immediately restore all deleted items in the folder they
were "permanently" deleted from. Don't have to worry about finding
tapes or having to wait for a database restore.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brett
Fernicola
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2007 12:57 PM
To: Exchange Discussions
Subject: RE: I need some advice on a good Exchange Backup - Restore
Solution.
I agree, Acronis works great for standard servers and workstations. I
have
restored hundreds of laptops and normal non AD servers with Acronis with
100% success.
I have a new ? though.
Lets say I schedule Acronis to backup my exchange database file. Then a
user
accidentaly deltes all of his email through IMAP or something. Now I
have a
good backup of the exchange database. Can I mount that datebase on a
different storage group to get to that users old mailbox contents, or do
I
need another spare exchange server? Whats the easiest way to recover
that
users mailbox via my snapshot of the Exchange database.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
Larry
Wahlers
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2007 1:42 PM
To: Exchange Discussions
Subject: RE: I need some advice on a good Exchange Backup - Restore
Solution.
Hi, Brett,
I haven't gone back to re-read all the stuff I sent you, but your
procedure sounds about right. Of course, I'd test it in an isolated
environment first. And, regarding Acronis, we've had good luck restoring
"normal" servers that aren't running specialized database applications
like Exchange, SQL, or AD. In fact, TrueImage has restored servers to
different hardware far more successfully than Backup Exec or Evault.
And, no, I don't work for any of these three companies!
--
Larry Wahlers
Concordia Technologies
The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod
MailTo:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Business Phone: (314) 996-1876
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Brett Fernicola
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2007 12:32 PM
To: Exchange Discussions
Subject: RE: I need some advice on a good Exchange Backup -
Restore Solution.
Thanks for the great links, I read through some and correct
me if I'm wrong.
It looks like I did not do a proper restore.
Would this be the correct procedure in case of a HD failure:
1. Restore a new working HD with the Acronis Image of my
Servers partition.
2. Unplug network cable
3. Boot into AD Restore mode. (F8 )
4. Restore System State from my NTBACKUP of just the SystemState.
5. Reboot into normal windows mode and let the other DC's
replicate the correct information.
6. Finished and up and running
Will this prevent the USN rollback problem I've been reading about.
And can this procedure be followed for both my Primary Domain
Controller and my Additional Domain Controller / Global
Catalog / Exchange Server.
The reason I did not follow the standard f8 restore procedure
is because Acronis assured me before I purchased the software
that their product can do an Online backup and Restore of a
domain controller and Exchange Server without any issues.
They never mentioned anything about doing NTBACKUPS or
preparing the box after a restore etc.
Strait Up I feel lied to and deceived by Acronis.
Also their product sometimes completely locks up the Server
and it needs a hard reboot. Their before and after bat file
run trick has not worked until their latest version that just
came out.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Larry Wahlers
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2007 10:50 AM
To: Exchange Discussions
Subject: RE: I need some advice on a good Exchange Backup -
Restore Solution.
Hot dog! I get to help somebody for a change, instead of
mooching off all the intelligent folks here.
We have Acronis TrueImage installed on a number of servers
and have used it successfully. However, it WILL NOT back up
and restore a DC. Read here to find out why:
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=96564
And, giving credit where credit is due, Jorge from this list
put me in the right direction on his blog:
http://blogs.dirteam.com/blogs/jorge/archive/2006/03/08/597.aspx
If you read that, you'll see a reference to the MSKB article here:
http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?id=875495
Bottom line is, you need to backup and restore a DC using an
"active directory-aware" program, such as NTBackup.
--
Larry Wahlers
Concordia Technologies
The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod
MailTo:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Business Phone: (314) 996-1876
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
Brett Fernicola
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2007 7:19 AM
To: Exchange Discussions
Subject: I need some advice on a good Exchange Backup - Restore
Solution.
Hi,
I have been looking for a good quick easy self automated
backup solution
for small exchange shops that I have been doing consulting work for.
My goal is to find a product that can backup an Exchange Server
completely including the OS state, System State, Exchange data and all
files. I want this backup to be a complete working disk image that I
could use to restore the server with in case of complete Hard Drive
failure. I also want to be able to start these backups while
the server
is still Online and running in windows and processing email. Then
eventually schedule all this to do a backup once a week thus
not needing
any admin intervention.
So far I have tried Acronis, and it works great when used
booted from a
boot cd, but running Live from windows is not always pretty.
I have the
latest version and I've seen it completely lock windows. I
also use bat
files to shut down (netlogin, File Replication, and Exchange)
before the
backup is run. I also turn on VSS support and tell Acronis to do an
entire C:
Partition image backup to a file and to save it on an external HD.
I dry run tested my backup and restore procedure by trying to
restore a
server to another extra identical HD I had lying around. After I
restored the Exchange Server I tested it on, which is also an
additional
Domain Controller and Global Catalog, the system did boot but it had
problems. In my event log I saw an error that said "Active Directory
was restored using an unsorted method and in result the
Netlogon Service
was Stopped." So I checked Netlogon and sure enough it was
stopped and
will not start on a reboot. Now If I manually started
netlogon and then
ran a dcdiag everything seemed to check out fine. Email was working,
Authentication was fine, OWA, and even SYSVOl replication was working
smoothly. However if you reboot this server in its restored state it
will not work until Netlogon is fired back up. So a simple
bat file can
fix this but should not be necessary.
So my question I pose is how do I properly backup and restore a small
Primary Domain Controller and small Exchange Server which is also an
additional domain controller + Global catalog. How good is NTBACKUP,
and what is the correct method of doing a backup and restore with a
NTBACKUP image.
Any thoughts, comments and software recommendations would be greatly
appreciated.
Brett Fernicola
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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