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Backup Exchange Server Questions

Tags:
  • best practices
  • Exchange
  • Backup
  • Business Computing
  • cal
Last response: in Business Computing
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October 3, 2013 8:50:05 AM

I'm looking to install an offsite backup exchange server at my companies DR location. I'm a relative noob that inherited the network admin job with no training and the previous guy gone for 3 months, so I was looking for suggestions on some best practices. We are currently running Exchange 2010.

So, should I keep it running all the time, or leave it off until I need it?

Do I need to purchase a second copy of exchange server?

Do I need to purchase new CALs, or are the ones I already have sufficient?

If I do have it up all the time will it have issues playing nice with the current exchange server? How would I keep that from happening?

Any other thoughts are appreciated!

tl;dr: Backup Exchange server, how do?

More about : backup exchange server questions

October 7, 2013 8:58:26 AM

Contact your Microsoft licensing rep. They'll have plenty of answers for you on your questions.

You'll want to keep it up and running which means you'll need additional licensing. CALs will be sufficient; you may even have Core CALs.

If you have System Center products, the DPM (Data Protection Manager) does a great job backing up Exchange mailboxes and allows for quick restores. You'll still want to have a disk to disk or disk to tape backup solution.

Depending on your size you could use NetBackup or BackupExec. System Center DPM is good, a datacenter license runs about $1500 and a standard license runs about $450.
October 18, 2013 4:56:10 AM

NetBackup or BackupExec are good options to backup Exchange server!!

Apart from it, Outlook pst files are also good option for backing up Exchange mailboxes. PST file backup will handy to use as it can be opened with MS Outlook at any location or can be imported into Exchange server mailbox with the help of powershell commands.

To Export Mailbox to PST file use this PowerShell Command Syntax:

New-mailboxexportrequest -<Mailbox ID> -<Path of PST File>

If are planning to export multiple mailboxes then create a txt file containing mailbox ID and use it like this:

type export_list.txt | New-mailboxexportrequest -<Mailbox ID> -<Path of PST File>

If still any problem persists or if you need to backup each mailbox individually pst or want to automate whole process then take the help of exchange mailbox export utility that is located here:

http://www.pcvita.com/export-exchange-2010-mailboxes-to-pst.html

Note: it also work with offline exchange server edb (64 & 32 bit)
October 20, 2013 4:08:24 AM

Do you have physical servers or are you virtualizing them as this could impact your backups:

the offsite "Backup" exchange server I'm assuming you want to be a fully functional exchange server? If so you could set it up as part of a disk access group (google DAG for more info), this can be a real time or lagged copy depending on your network links and setting up something like DNS round robin to hit that server if yours is down. This will keep them "playing nice" as you put it and you can see their status within exchange.

Do you have a dedicated circuit or VPN to this DR site?

With this scenario, yes you need another copy of exchange server, if your user/device CALS are OK then you won't need additional.

If your link between sites is decent you can do this otherwise you could store some sort of exchange backups (i store backups onsite and in our DR site), we currently use Veeam
!