Date - 01/2008
Affected Product & Version - NetVault: Backup ALL
Affected Module & Version - Exchange server APM (ALL Versions)
OS Version - Windows 2003 64-bit
Application Information - MS Exchange 2007
Description:
This article discusses Exchange 2007 High Available/Failover replication features called CCR, LCR and SCR and whether or not they are supported.
Definition:
Through the Exchange server APM 3.1.x, BakBone offers the ability to backup and restore MS Exchange 2007. This is currently in a normal "single server" scenario or single active clustered node environment only.
However, Exchange 2007 also brings new High Availability features such as:
- Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR):
Asynchronous log shipping and replay from an active Exchange 2007 Server cluster node to a passive node. The storage doesn't have to be shared in this scenario.
First a SEEDING phase happens were the .edb files and their logs are copied over (comparable to NV:Replicator nvr_sync). Then the logs are continuously copied and replayed, but only after they are closed on the source. Usually Microsoft recommends the use of VSS to backup the passive node, reducing I/O and backup requests on the active node.
- Local Continuous Replication (LCR):
Asynchronous log shipping and replaying of and Exchange Server databases and logs to a second local disk. The production storage group is referred to as the active copy, and the copy of the storage group maintained on the separate set of disks is referred to as the passive copy.
- Stand-by Continuous Replication (SCR):
Continuous replication of a single Exchange server's Storage Groups to multiple stand-by clusters targets. Unlike LCR and CCR, which support only one replication target per storage group (the passive copy), SCR supports multiple replication targets per storage group.
Although LCR and CCR can be in theory backed up, unfortunately our plugin currently cannot support backing up Exchange server 2007 in a replication/clustered environment.
Current workaround:
NetVault Exchange Server APM already supports backing up and restoring Exchange cluster nodes. So we recommend using this feature to backup and restore only the active node in the Exchange cluster in the "traditional" and supported way.
While we cannot backup the data replicated to the passive node using CCR or to another internal disk using LCR, we however already offer Exchange data protection solutions within a clustered environment and even support its failover to any other node in case of system failure.
Please refer to:
http://www.bakbone.com/docs/NetVault_Backup_APM_for_Exchange_Server_Users_Guide.pdf
