Exchange 2003 VSS Backup Solution
For IBM Storage DS8000/DS6000
And Symantec Backup Exec 11d
Page 61 David West, David Hartman
©Copyright IBM Corp. 2007
Traditionally, this protection is primarily accomplished through online backups
of the Exchange databases. If organizations also need to recover individual
email messages or mailboxes, separate slow, error-prone, “brick-level”
mailbox backups are typically required to recover these individual items
without restoring the entire Exchange database.
Granular Recovery Technology Benefits
The main benefits of Backup Exec’s Granular Recovery Technology (GRT)
include:
• Eliminate separate, slow individual mailbox backups completely.
• Perform fast single-pass VSS backups of Exchange databases and still
recover individual mailboxes, individual messages, and private and
public folders. NOTE: For VSS, this feature currently only supports On-
host backups. Support for GRT from off-host VSS backups is planned
for a future release.
• Works with or without the need for recovery storage groups (RSGs)
• Cut backup time and storage in half by performing fast, single-pass
Exchange database backups
• Reduce storage/media costs
• Enable granular recovery or complete database recovery of all
Exchange data
With Backup Exec 11d GRT-enabled backups, Exchange mail messages,
mailboxes, and folders are restored individually without having to restore the
entire Exchange database—and without mailbox level backups. All that is
required is a single-pass full or incremental backup of Exchange, including
VSS snapshots, so this feature dramatically decreases the time required to
back up mailboxes while also reducing the storage requirement. You can now
recover critical Exchange data in seconds, including individual emails,
individual mailboxes, public folders, calendars, and contacts from a fast,
single-pass Exchange database backup.
Performing Exchange VSS Backups
The Exchange Agent supports the Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service
(VSS), a snapshot provider service that is only available on Windows Server
2003 or later. Using VSS, a point in time view of the Exchange database is
snapped and then backed up, leaving the actual Exchange database open
and available for users.