Backup and protection instructions for Exchange servers

Backups of the Exchange server can be divided into two primary destinations. The first is a backup of the entire system's data. This includes core data for the Windows operating system, Server status, application installation, and Exchange software installation directory, plus a backup of the Exchange database.

Backup to the system can be done by NetBackup itself to the local operating system backup work. The main discussion below is a backup of the Exchange database.

As all user data is stored in the Exchange database, how to protect them becomes the focus of a solution. The Exchange Server provides several ways to back up its data. After combining the pros and cons of various approaches, we can simply type the methods of protecting exchange data into two categories: database backup and Mailbox backup. Database backups are mandatory. When a disaster occurs, restoring the entire database is the only way to get all the data back to the Exchange server. A mailbox backup is optional, but it has an absolute advantage when it requires fast mailbox data or public folder data recovery. For these two types of backup patterns, you can divide your Exchange server's data protection tasks into three areas:

Application Protection

This protection includes backup and recovery of application files for Exchange servers, cluster support, and disaster recovery steps to restore the entire application system. At the level of application protection, our focus is on backing up the application files and configuration of the Exchange server. Because Exchange runs on the Windows operating system, the protection of the application is also primarily reflected in the backup of the system. We need to back up all of the operating system files and the exchange's installation directory, as well as the server's system state. In implementation, the data that holds all Exchange user information is first protected by backing up the Active Directory server. This ensures that the most important user data in the Windows Active Directory is saved. Then, because of the use of MSCS in the system, we also need to build the information backup to the cluster to ensure that the recovery can still be properly added to the existing cluster system.

Database protection

Database protection includes the way that you use to back up your Exchange server data, such as backing up and recovering the disk volumes where Exchange data resides.

The Exchange server has two database directories and information stores (information Store) that hold user information. The information store is the destination of user data storage, and it is divided into public and private databases. The data for all public files is stored in the public database. All user mailboxes are stored in the private database. To provide better support for scalability, clustering, and backup, both Exchange2000 and 2003 allow information storage to be split into different database storage groups to serve specific users. Each storage group can be protected separately, and the transaction log is shared among different groups, providing a more flexible data protection scenario. A directory is a database of users (recipients) that are stored internally in exchange. Starting with Exchange 2000, this database is merged into the Active Directory of Windows. Although data changes in the Active Directory are not as frequent as information stores, in order to ensure consistency between users and their data, we also need to include directory backups in a backup strategy. Exchange uses a shared transaction log for each database within a storage group, which allows NetBackup to enable more granular backup of the exchange's databases through the exchange agent? D? D differential incremental backup or cumulative incremental backup.