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we are considering various backup systems to backup our exchange 2010 sp1 on windows 2008 R2 sp 1(in an ESX 4.1 vm) using bacula on our final backup server.

From what I understand the native exchange bacula agent is not working anymore with exchange 2010.

What I'd like is some solution that could hot backup the whole datastore, using the minimum space , possibly without third party commercial software (besides the local bacula agent).

what are your suggestions?

golemwashere
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1 Answers1

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You could always use Windows Server backup, which is baked into Windows Server 2008 R2.

There's a couple of options as follows:

  • I'd really only do this if you're writing to tape. Use Windows Server Backup to backup Exchange, save the data (locally or on a network location) and use bacula to save the backup files to tape.
  • If you're saving to network storage, it would probably be easier to just save the Windows Server Backup files on your network storage. This will allow for a direct restore of Exchange and doesn't require bacula as an intermediary, so will be quicker to recover in a disaster scenario.

It is important to use proper tools when backing up Exchange that use the Exchange backup API's, or you'll find your transaction logs won't get flushed and your log volume will rather quickly fill up and dismount the associated databases.

If you are after a commercial solution, personally I use Backup Exec 2010 R2. Others are available, but I haven't really used them enough to comment on functionality. As with all commercial software though, you'll end up paying for the privilege and it's ultimately up to you whether this is something you'd consider.

Ben Pilbrow
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  • +1 Just an FYI: Windows Backup does not support tapes directly, but a disk-to-disk-to-tape via Bacula would work as you suggested. – gravyface May 10 '11 at 13:10
  • thanks, do you think it could be possible to launch windows server backup in syncronous directly from bacula (kinda like mysqldump through pipes are done) – golemwashere May 10 '11 at 13:13
  • I've never used bacula, so unfortunately I don't know if it will do that. I only really mentioned it for saving to tape, because as gravyface noted Windows won't natively write to tape. – Ben Pilbrow May 10 '11 at 13:33