I agree, especially if it will help Shook. Did you write it in small enough words? J
From: Sobey, Richard A [mailto:r.so...@imperial.ac.uk] Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 9:19 AM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Incremental backups Thanks Michael. Seems like it will be a good purchase. From: bounce-8371736-8066...@lyris.sunbelt-software.com [mailto:bounce-8371736-8066...@lyris.sunbelt-software.com] On Behalf Of Michael B. Smith Sent: 12 January 2009 14:17 To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Incremental backups I cover Exchange backups in detail in Chapter 12 of my upcoming book which should be available any minute now. Please buy it. J Here is an excerpt that answers your question. Backup Types As you might expect, there are a number of kinds of Exchange database backups. They all map directly to standard filesystem types of backups and thus share similar names. However, there are only two database backup types that you can use without another backup: normal and copy. All of the other backups will require a normal backup to be useful. type="note" The backup types discussed in the following sections apply both to streaming backups and to VSS backups. Generally speaking, the easiest mechanism for recovery is daily normal backups. The mechanism that uses the least media is a weekly normal backup plus daily incremental backups, at the expense of a much more complicated recovery. The standard compromise is a normal backup each weekend with differential backups during the week. When it comes time to recover-as almost everyone has to do eventually-you will thank yourself if you have made daily normal backups. You absolutely should do daily backups and retain them until at least the next successful backup has been done. OpsMgr generates a warning alert if transaction logs are not flushed within a period of three days and generates an error alert if transaction logs are not flushed within a week. Transaction logs are flushed only by normal (full) backups and by incremental backups. Normal Backups A normal backup is also known as a full backup. This is the backup type that most people probably think of when they think of a backup. A normal backup copies the entire database, and the backup can be restored on its own. A normal backup will remove (flush) all current transaction logs if the normal backup is successful and update the database header indicating that a full backup occurred with a particular time stamp (signature). To think of it in terms of a filesystem backup, a normal backup backs up everything and clears the archive bit; that is, it indicates that the file has been backed up. Copy Backups A copy backup is similar to a normal backup. However, a copy backup does not flush transaction logs, and it doesn't update the database header. You can use the copy backup to fully restore to the point of a backup and roll forward from there. Generally speaking, if a support person asks you to make a backup of your database(s) outside of your normal backup rotation, you should be doing a copy backup and not a normal (full) backup. This preserves your options in the case of requiring any reload or restore. Executing a normal (full) backup outside your normal rotation can possibly complicate a recovery scenario if transaction logs need to be replayed. To consider it in terms of a filesystem backup, a copy backup backs up everything but does not clear the archive bit. Daily Backups A daily backup bears some resemblance to differential and incremental backups. A daily backup will back up the transaction logs that were generated today. This is not a recommended way to back up an Exchange database since it can potentially have missing transaction logs (consider that a transaction log was in use and not available for backup at midnight). To consider it in terms of a filesystem backup, a daily backup backs up everything modified or created today but does not clear the archive bit. Incremental Backups An incremental backup will back up all created transaction logs since the last normal backup or incremental backup, and then it flushes the transaction logs. This is a mechanism to keep your transaction log volume clean, at the expense of complicating your restore/recovery process. To consider it in terms of a filesystem backup, an incremental backup backs up everything created or modified since the last normal or incremental backup and then clears the archive bit. Differential Backups A differential backup will back up all created transaction logs since the last normal or incremental backup. It does not flush the transaction logs. To consider it in terms of a filesystem backup, a differential backup backs up everything created or modified since the last normal or incremental backup. Regards, Michael B. Smith, MCITP:SA,EMA/MCSE/Exchange MVP My blog: http://TheEssentialExchange.com/blogs/michael I'll be at TEC'2009! http://www.tec2009.com/vegas/index.php From: Sherry Abercrombie [mailto:saber...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 9:05 AM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: Re: Incremental backups So you can do incremental backups on E2K7? I thought that 'incremental' + 'Exchange' = Brick Level Backups. On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 7:15 AM, Michael B. Smith <mich...@theessentialexchange.com> wrote: I'm not familiar with EMC Networker, but if you select the entire server for backup, then that is the behavior I would expect. If you select each individual storage group for backup, then you should be able to do it per storage group. Regards, Michael B. Smith, MCITP:SA,EMA/MCSE/Exchange MVP My blog: http://TheEssentialExchange.com/blogs/michael I'll be at TEC'2009! http://www.tec2009.com/vegas/index.php From: Sobey, Richard A [mailto:r.so...@imperial.ac.uk] Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 7:36 AM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Incremental backups Well, that was the problem - circ logging disabled on that storage group and now it works. So, since I've never used incremental logging before, is this by design? As in, ALL the storage groups need to have Circular Logging disable, or incremental backups of a server cannot be done? Cheers Richard From: bounce-8371579-8066...@lyris.sunbelt-software.com [mailto:bounce-8371579-8066...@lyris.sunbelt-software.com] On Behalf Of Sobey, Richard A Sent: 12 January 2009 12:26 To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Incremental backups Circular logging: disabled. Logs /are/ being truncated after a full backup. I've just noticed this error in the app log, which comes immediately before the full backup starting error: Exchange ESE HResult: -939523570 (0xc800020e); last error: 0 (0x00000000) A quick Google seems to suggest this is related to circular logging. But I guarantee that option is disabled, and the Exchange services have all been restarted since that verification (on Friday, I generated about 250MB worth of transactions; I presume I wouldn't have seen those logs if circular logging was enabled!) Apart from that, and the rejected backup error, there's nothing untoward. Something I've just realised: Circular logging IS enabled on one of the storage groups. I assume then that this is blocking the incremental backup of ALL the stores on the server. Testing now, will let you all know. Richard From: bounce-8371552-8066...@lyris.sunbelt-software.com [mailto:bounce-8371552-8066...@lyris.sunbelt-software.com] On Behalf Of Michael B. Smith Sent: 12 January 2009 12:07 To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Incremental backups Has someone been mixing streaming and VSS backups? But as William says - the details should be in the Application event log. Regards, Michael B. Smith, MCITP:SA,EMA/MCSE/Exchange MVP My blog: http://TheEssentialExchange.com/blogs/michael I'll be at TEC'2009! http://www.tec2009.com/vegas/index.php From: William Lefkovics [mailto:will...@lefkovics.net] Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 6:38 AM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Incremental backups Circular logging is not enabled is it? Anything in the app event log after the last full backup to indicate a problem? Were the transaction logs properly deleted after the last full backup? From: Sobey, Richard A [mailto:r.so...@imperial.ac.uk] Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 2:37 AM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: Incremental backups Is there anything special needs to be done before I can run an incremental backup of an Exchange 2007 SP1 mailbox database? I'm getting this error from my backup software (EMC Networker): "The Exchange Server has rejected the backup request level. A full backup will be performed." The server has had plenty of full backups in the past couple of weeks. ~ Ninja Email Security with Cloudmark Spam Engine Gets Image Spam ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Ninja ~
