Overview

When using the Select service plan we support live backup of Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010 (or better) on Windows Server 2003 or 2008 (or better). For these configurations backup is done natively using the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). We fully support older versions of Exchange on Windows Server 2003, but require a few seconds of downtime while a volume snapshot is taken. For older versions of Exchange Server on older versions of Windows you can either (a) backup a copy of Exchange database (recommended), or (b) use the ntbackup program that comes with Windows (or other backup software) to backup your Exchange Server Database to a file on a regular basis and use our software to backup these backup files remotely.

Exchange Server 2003 or 2008 or 2010 (or better) on Windows Server 2003 or 2008:

1. Create a sub-account for each Exchange Server machine, as needed.
2. Login to each Exchange Server machine as a windows user that has rights to read the Exchange Server database files (*.edb, *.stm, *.log, *.chk).
3. Install and configure our software on each Exchange Server.
4. Use the Folders page to add the folder (directory) containing your Exchange Server database files (*.edb, *.stm, *.log, *.chk) to the backup. If your logs are stored in a separate directory (recommended) then you should also add the folder containing the transaction logs to the Folders page also. Even though you are performing a full backup, you must backup the transaction log files (*.log).
5. On the Folders page, right click the folder containing your Exchange Server files and choose Properties (if you have multiple folders with Exchange database and transaction log files, do this for each folder).
6. Change the "Verify Database Files" option in the "Exchange Server" section to Yes.
   If you do not see this option, follow these steps:
   1. Close the Folder Properties page.
   2. Go to the Options page and then the Backup tab.
   3. Click on the value for the "Full path to eseutil.exe" setting and find the location of eseutil.exe. This is typically located in c:\Program Files\ExchSrvr\bin or c:\windows\system32. eseutil.exe is required to perform an integrity check on your Exchange database and transaction log files.
   4. Save the option changes.
   5. Go back to the Folders page and open the properties for the folder containing the Exchange database files.
   6. Change the "Verify Database Files" option in the "Exchange Server" section to Yes.
7. Also change the "Always Check Block Fingerprints" option to "On." This ensures that even if Exchange does not update the modification date/time of the database file (which can happen with some configurations), the backup will still scan the file for changes.
8. IMPORTANT: The system state must be backed up for your Exchange server and domain controller(s). To backup the system state, click the Add button on the Folders page, and choose System State. Use the dialog to set the schedule (normally weekly is recommended). System state backups will automatically be taken according to the schedule you've chosen. It is important that you are backing up your System State data, because the Exchange database relies on information in the active directory, and backing up the system state includes a backup of active directory. You will not be able to restore your Exchange server after a disaster without a backup of the active directory information inside the system state.

Important Notes:

• If you are using Microsoft Small Business Server 2003, then the Exchange VSS writer is turned off by default. You will need to turn this on in order for Exchange backups to work properly. Please refer to Microsoft KB Q838183 for instructions. If you are using SBS 2008 the Exchange VSS writer is already enabled by default.
• If you plan to do both remote and local backups of Exchange, then go to the Backup tab of the Options page and check the 'Restrict Concurrent Backups' option. Exchange is fundamentally limited to one backup at a time, so this option ensures that one backup will wait until the other finishes so that they do not conflict.
• If you are using Database Availability Groups (DAG) in Exchange 2010, backups of Exchange databases must take place on the server that is operating as the active node for the Exchange databases you are trying to backup. For more information on DAG and VSS, see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa579091(v=exchg.140).aspx

We will automatically perform differential, live backups of your Exchange Server database. Our server will always store the most current version of the files, and historical versions are stored using backwards deltas. This is safer than forward deltas because it does not rely on the integrity of all of the deltas in order to recover the most recent version.

It will automatically use the eseutil program (with the /k switch) to verify the integrity of each page in your database before it's uploaded. This ensures that your local hard disk has not corrupted your Exchange Database before a new version is backed up.

Older versions of Exchange on Windows Server 2003:

In this scenario the volume shadow copy service (part of Windows Server 2003) will allow a snapshot to be taken of the filesystem after your Exchange services are stopped. Once the snapshot has been created (typically takes a few seconds), your Exchange services can be started immediately. Thus, this will allow your backups to proceed with only a few seconds of downtime for the Exchange server.

1. First, follow the instructions in the previous section to configure the system to backup the directory containing your Exchange database.
2. Next, go to the Options page, Backup tab. Change the "Preinit Stop Services" to the following value:
   
   MSExchangeES, IMAP4Svc, POP3Svc, RESvc, MSExchangeIMC, MSExchangeSRS, MSExchangeMGMT, MSExchangeMTA, MSExchangeIS, MSExchangeSA
3. Change the "Postinit Start Services" to the following value:
   
   MSExchangeSA, MSExchangeIS, MSExchangeMTA, MSExchangeMGMT, MSExchangeSRS, MSExchangeIMC, RESvc, POP3Svc, IMAP4Svc, MSExchangeES
4. Save the settings.
5. IMPORTANT: The system state must be backed up for your Exchange server and domain controller(s). To backup the system state, click the Add button on the Folders page, and choose System State. Use the dialog to set the schedule (normally weekly is recommended). System state backups will automatically be taken according to the schedule you've chosen. It is important that you are backing up your System State data, because the Exchange database relies on information in the active directory, and backing up the system state includes a backup of active directory. You will not be able to restore your Exchange server after a disaster without a backup of the active directory information inside the system state.

Older versions of Exchange Server or Windows:

This scenario requires that you either (a) backup a regularly updated copy of the Exchange database files, or (b) use ntbackup to backup the Exchange database, and then remotely backup the bkf file generated by ntbackup. We highly recommend option (a), because the incremental backups will be small. However, option (a) requires that the Exchange server be (automatically) brought offline for a brief period of time while the files are copied. If even a few minutes of down time is unacceptable, you must use option (b). Using option (b) will allow the Exchange server to be backed up while online, but the incremental backups will be very large.

Option A: Backing up a regularly updated copy of Exchange:

This option will shutdown your Exchange services and will then use a batch file to make a copy of your Exchange database. The Exchange services will then be restarted. You will then select the directory containing the copied data for remote backup.

1. Write a batch file that will stop Exchange and will copy the database. For example create the file c:\BackupExchange.bat that contains:
   
   net stop MSExchangeES
   net stop IMAP4Svc
   net stop POP3Svc
   net stop RESvc
   net stop MSExchangeIMC
   net stop MSExchangeSRS
   net stop MSExchangeMGMT
   net stop MSExchangeMTA
   net stop MSExchangeIS /Y
   net stop MSExchangeSA /Y
   xcopy "D:\program files\exchsrvr\mdbdata\*" "E:\ExchangeOfflineBackup" /E /D /V /C /I /F /H /R /K /O /Y
   net start MSExchangeSA /Y
   net start MSExchangeIS /Y
   net start MSExchangeMTA
   net start MSExchangeMGMT
   net start MSExchangeSRS
   net start MSExchangeIMC
   net start RESvc
   net start POP3Svc
   net start IMAP4Svc
   net start MSExchangeES
2. Use the Scheduled Tasks in windows to schedule that batch file to run every day at a certain time (e.g. at 3:00am every day).
3. Add the folder containing the copied Exchange database to the backup set.
4. Make sure that time scheduled for backups to begin is long enough away from the start of the file copy of the Exchange database that the file copy will finish before the remote backup begins. 
5. IMPORTANT: The system state must be backed up for your Exchange server and domain controller(s). To backup the system state, click the Add button on the Folders page, and choose System State. Use the dialog to set the schedule (normally weekly is recommended). System state backups will automatically be taken according to the schedule you've chosen. It is important that you are backing up your System State data, because the Exchange database relies on information in the active directory, and backing up the system state includes a backup of active directory. You will not be able to restore your Exchange server after a disaster without a backup of the active directory information inside the system state.

Option B: Using ntbackup:

Use the ntbackup program (or other backup software) to backup your Exchange Server database to a file. Please see these articles for more information. You should then have our software backup the directory where you place your *.bkf files.

You should schedule periodic full backups of Exchange and perform incremental backups frequently in between (at least once or twice daily). This can be automated with ntbackup and the Windows Task Scheduler. For full backups, because the backup dump files are created from scratch each time, our software must backup the entire file to the server (it cannot detect incrementals between Exchange database dumps). As a result, how often to perform a full database backup is a balance between bandwidth/disk space (if you perform a full backup more often) and reliability (because Exchange incremental backups use forward deltas). Note that we employ end-to-end integrity mechanisms to ensure 100% integrity of the data that is backed up, so the increased risk only comes from errors introduced on the local hard drive before remote backup is performed.

If your databases are large and you need incremental, live backups of your Exchange Servers with our software, you should upgrade to the latest versions of Exchange Server and Windows Server.

You may want to override the number of historical versions you store for your Exchange Server database dumps. To do this, go to the Folders page in the Backup Manager and right click on the folder containing your Exchange Server database files. Change the Data History settings to limit how much historical data to store.

Notes

• If you use another program to perform incremental backups of Exchange Server then you should change the "Volume Shadow Backup Type" option on the Backup tab of the Options page to be "Copy." This prevents our software from truncating Exchange Server transaction logs after a successful backup (which would interfere with the incremental backups of your other backup software).
• IMPORTANT: Make sure you are backing up a copy of the active directory as well as the Exchange database. This can be done by backing up the system state of your active directory server(s).