i currently rent a remote hosted exchange server and i would like to make sometimes backup every couple of weeks or days is that possible? (i prefer a unix [ubuntu] based solution but win solution will be ok too)
2 Answers
Reality check:
i currently rent a remote hosted exchange server
Do you really rent a server, or do you rent mailboxes on a server? If you rent a server, how do you handle active directory (requirements) etc. with just one machine?
I would assume you rent mailboxes on a server, and in this case: BACKUP IS NOT YOUR BUSINESS - it is the server operators business. Users dont have access to the server backup interfaces. You should check your SLA and contracts onto how the server provider is supposed to organize his backups.
If you rent a server, why force a square peg through a round hole with using unix? Just use windows integrated backup. Especially as Exchange is a real server application and can thus handle taking backups without stopping the server if using the proper API, which, incidentally is windows specific.
I think it is a fair question: you rent a cheap facility, but should that service provider fail, get hacked, go offline, etc. you do require a local backup of all that exchange data for business continuity.
Hosting providers ought to provide this as a service, synchronising their backup to a server/storage at your site - I don't understand why they miss this profit making service opportunity adn migration to a new provider or set up of your own server.
Option 1. Backup OST files from users computers Any good client computer backup regime will handle this, though if the OST files become really big, it is slow and cumbersome unless you buy software capable of an incremental option, even then, you will want a full backup periodically, and this will take a long time. It fails if your users have laptops and keep Outlook open all the time when the computer is turned on...
Option 2. Well, the alternative is to run a workstation and automate the opening and sync of each users profile in Outlook on that computer over night, every night. There are various means of scripting or automating login to different profiles, and setting send receive, and log out and so on. This is likely an easier route to an incremental backup of all Exchange data to one computer/NAS/etc. From here you can set a backup routine to Tape/Disk/cloud to provide off site backup Daily/Weekly/Monthly to achieve your backup goal
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