If the Database/Logs are on the iSCSI volumes, then it's not worth it to be honest. If it's Veeam you are using, then it's more akin to a normal backup product than just VM snapshots thanks the application aware aspects. So the only time I would have expected you'd recover from Veeam-type backups would be using it's single-item recovery features or an entire database.
If it's the base-OS you'd be backing up only, then I wouldn't bother. With a DAG node it's not quite as simple as /recoverserver, but it's not far off. I'd be looking at what integration at the iSCSI SAN level you have. E.g. if it's NetApp you can use SnapManager for Exchange to snapshot and then backup/replicate off the Database and Log luns. By the way, if it is Veeam, IIRC it may be a known issue with DAGs and Veeam snapshots causing issues. I can't remember where I read it, but I think even after increasing the cluster heartbeat timeout people were still having occasional issues. I work for a Veeam partner so can probably find out more if you need me to, though it sounds like you probably won't gain much from doing it anyway. Steve From: Paul Hutchings [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 22 March 2012 17:32 To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Issues snapshotting virtual Exchange servers in DAG? Oddly I can't find an article on his blog using anything obvious (to me), did find this though: http://internationalmanofawesome.wordpress.com/2011/08/05/decreasing-exchange-2010-dag-failover-sensitivity-by-increasing-cluster-timeout-values/ My next question was going to be whether it's worth doing VM level backups to start with, particularly with a DAG? AIUI so long as you have a good copy of the databases it's a "simple" matter of standing up a new server and re-installing Exchange with /recoverserver - but I don't have the experience to know if this is likely to be more pleasant than trying to use a snapshot as in our case our databases/logs are on iSCSI volumes mounted within the guest, so snapshotting the VM would just get us a bootable OS. ________________________________ From: Michael B. Smith [[email protected]] Sent: 22 March 2012 5:20 PM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Issues snapshotting virtual Exchange servers in DAG? Yeah, and there is a solution to it. You change the heartbeat timeout from 5 seconds to 10 seconds. This is discussed on Tim McMichael's blog. You can probably google/bing the proper article as easily as I can. :) Personally, I don't like taking snapshots of entire VMs. For one thing, it's not a supported way to restore an Exchange server. From: Paul Hutchings [mailto:[email protected]]<mailto:[mailto:[email protected]]> Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 12:49 PM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: Issues snapshotting virtual Exchange servers in DAG? I've read that if you have a DAG and use a backup application that tries to quiesce the VM prior to snapshotting it, you can find that because the VM is "stunned" for a second or two, your DAG can failover, presumably because the heartbeat mechanism thinks the host being snapshotted has gone down/offline? Has anyone experienced this please? I'm still looking into adding a second Exchange 2010 box which would be virtual, and this is something that sounds like it could be quite a problem. Thanks, Paul ________________________________ MIRA Ltd Watling Street, Nuneaton, Warwickshire, CV10 0TU, England Registered in England and Wales No. 402570 VAT Registration GB 100 1464 84 The contents of this e-mail are confidential and are solely for the use of the intended recipient. If you receive this e-mail in error, please delete it and notify us either by e-mail, telephone or fax. You should not copy, forward or otherwise disclose the content of the e-mail as this is prohibited. --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the body: unsubscribe exchangelist --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the body: unsubscribe exchangelist --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the body: unsubscribe exchangelist --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe exchangelist
