Networker

Re: [Networker] Backing up a large Exchange 2007 server

2008-10-02 11:14:47
Subject: Re: [Networker] Backing up a large Exchange 2007 server
From: "Browning, David" <DBrown AT LSUHSC DOT EDU>
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 10:09:47 -0500
Our email group is looking at archiving (meeting with vendors), but once
again, price will probably be an issue. 

Since we are still meeting our backup window (only 6 hours), there's no
real pressure to archive the data, other than the usual - more efficient
database, quicker backups, quicker restores, etc.  

I think we will get an archive solution one day, just not sure when that
will be.  

David M. Browning Jr.
IT Project Coordinator Enterprise Backups and Help Desk
LSU Health Sciences Center 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: EMC NetWorker discussion [mailto:NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU] On
Behalf Of Stan Horwitz
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 10:01 AM
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [Networker] Backing up a large Exchange 2007 server

David Browning, Jr. On 10/2/08 10:07 AM, "David Browning, Jr."
<DBrown AT lsuhsc DOT edu> wrote:

> Hey Stan -
>
> We don't have 20TB yet, but I just checked, and right now we back up
> almost 4 TB of Exchange data nightly.   We choose to do FULL backups
> overnight with a differential during the daytime.
>
> We have 4 active nodes, with 2 passive in a windows cluster
environment.
> We use dedicated storage nodes to backup the Exchange data over fiber
to
> LTO-3 drives, and can get all 4 TB done in about 6 hours.  Doing the
> math, your 20TB would be difficult to get done in 12 hours (it will
> depend on how many nodes, and how it is backed up), but with updated
> hardware you might be able to get it done.
>
> How much disk are you going to buy?  When we have looked at a backup
to
> disk, then backup to tape option, it has been VERY pricey.  When you
> start pricing out 100+ TB of disk storage, it becomes very expensive.
> At 20TB, you could only keep 5 FULL backups of your Exchange data on
> disk.  In our case, we would need at 100 TB just for 2-3 weeks of
backup
> data on disk.
>
> So, even though we use an older technology (tape), the old ROI tells
us
> that spending $500 K to $1 Million for backups to disk might not be
> worth it.   Don't forget Legato licenses that you would have to buy,
in
> addition to any hardware necessary.

David;

Thanks for the feedback. We are still in the shopping phase for the
hardware
(servers and storage) that we'll deploy for our new Exchange server so
we
haven't decided what kind of storage we'll get yet. We have an outside
consultant here now who specializes in large Exchange deployments who is
tasked with helping us identify our hardware needs.

Are you doing any archiving of your Exchange email? I am not necessarily
asking about archiving for legal compliance, but archiving based on time
and
frequency of access of messages. Our thinking thus far is that in order
to
meet our backup window objective, we have to push old email off to cheap
storage and not back it up on a daily basis.

We are assuming that if we lose our new Exchange server in a disaster
situation, we'll be okay if we recover the actual server and the most
recent
20% of email and then worry about recovering older messages later.

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