Hi Gerard,
We have been trying to use ADSM for about a year now to backup MS Exchange
Servers and have had many problems with configuration, server and tape
device hardware, support from IBM (mainly trying to get our contracts
straight, and dealing with first level support). Most of the problems have
been solved, so now the only thing that's standing in our way for a full
deployment is performance.
We still think that a central backup system is the right direction to head
in, however.
>>1. Quality of Backup&Restore of MS Exchange Server via ADSM, online
>>Database Backup.
Initially we had a many problems with the quality of the backups. One major
problem that we had was the patch file (.PAT) grew over 1GB, which caused
the restore to hang. The problem mysteriously disappeared. Today we verify
all backups that are done with ADSM by doing restores periodically with good
results. Generally, it's always good practice to test restores using any
backup system.
>>2. Performance of Backup&Restore of 10-12 GB Exchange Databases
Performance, at least for us, has been very unsatisfactory. We are still
trying to find the bottleneck, which has been a huge task so far, since
tuning a complex system such as ADSM has many variables involved. For a
10-12 GB database your performance might be ok if your backing up one or two
servers. Once you increase the number, it might drop. However, this will
depend on many factors. In our environment it's taking 8 hours to backup a
15 GB store. Just wanted to mention that we are backing up 7 servers at the
same time. Our goal is to get a rate of 12GB/hr. IBM has some
documentation on tuning ADSM but it only gives test scenarios, there are no
case studies that I'm aware of.
>>3. Handling of Backup&Restore GUI
Backup and restore using the GUI works just as good as using the command
line. No problems encountered here, but the GUI is still rough in the
making and could be refined some more. Given, it's a version 1 product, so
I would expect many enhancements from IBM in this area.
>>4. Configuration "smartness"
It is very simple to setup the ADSM backup agents, both the base client and
ADSMConnect agent for MS Exchange. The installation took literally a few
minutes, and we didn't need to reboot the MS Exchange Servers. IBM has done
a good job in this area.
>>5. Experience in ADSM Backup for Exchange in a Storage Area Network
>>environment
>>Brick Level Backup&Restore
>>Does ADSM in the actual Version support brick level Backup&Restore of
>>Exchange. Can we restore single mail or public Folders? Can we restore
>>single connectors?
This is a problem area for all NT backup systems. We don't have that much
experience with SANS, but have looked into brick level backups and there
just not worth it in general. I don't think the ADSMConnect Agent for MS
Exchange supports Brick-Level backups. My recommendation is to not use
Brick-Level backups at all on servers with greater than 100 mailboxes, since
it uses MAPI to connect to the mailbox. This slows down the backups
substantially.
The method of restoring a single public folder or mailbox that most
reliable, is still restoring the entire information store to a recovery
server.
Another feature that we use frequently is the "Recovery Deleted Items" in
Outlook 8.03. You can actually set the retention time of messages in
Exchange Admin, and using this tool, messages that have been deleted can be
recovered in seconds. This is a great feature! It has saved us a lot time
and effort because we didn't need to do a restore.
Overall, I think ADSM is a fair product for backing up MS Exchange Servers
that are not too large (>15GB), and no too many (<4). Currently,
performance is the biggest issue. As side from performance, backup and
restores have been, for the most part, successful. One last point in
closing: use a RISC/AIX based platform for your ADSM server. In our
experience, we've found Intel/NT platforms to be one of the main bottle
necks in performance.
Hope this helps.
--Gene
> -----Original Message-----
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gerard Diep [SMTP:Gerard.Diep AT PEDICO DOT DE]
> Sent: Thursday, April 22, 1999 5:28 PM
> To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Subject: ADSM and MS Exchange
>
> Dear Collegues!
>
>
> As we haven4t found ADSM Newsgroups in Germany we may ask you, if someone
> of
> you has experience in using the actual version of ADSM exchange agents as
> main Backup& Restore and Disaster&Recovery strategy in your MS Exchange
> environment.
> Can someone tell me about:
> Backup&Restore
> 1. Quality of Backup&Restore of MS Exchange Server via ADSM, online
> Database
> Backup
> 2. Performance of Backup&Restore of 10-12 GB Exchange Databases
> 3. Handling of Backup&Restore GUI
> 4. Configuration "smartness"
> 5. Experience in ADSM Backup for Exchange in a Storage Area Network
> environment
> Brick Level Backup&Restore
> Does ADSM in the actual Version support brick level Backup&Restore of
> Exchange. Can we restore single mail or public Folders? Can we restore
> single connectors?
>
> Disaster Recovery
> Does someone have experience about Disaster & Recvorey experience?
> Is that possible to restore Exchange Databases with or with no circular
> logging?
>
>
>
> Many thanks for your hints
> Gerard Diep
> mailto:Gerard.Diep AT PEDICO DOT DE
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