How to backup MS Exchange properly

[mohnewald]

Hello,

how do you backup MS Exchange properly? This might be out-of-scope here but i dunno where else to ask.

The VM based Backups are nice to have, but they are not consistent in the matter of the Exchange DB transaction log.
Also such features as Mailbox/Mail Restore is (of course) not covered by PBS.

Can i get those features with veeam backup agent? I was told that it can be installed in the Exchange host itself and then save the Backups to some share.
Alternatively google brought up https://www.codetwo.com/backup-for-exchange/

How do you backup your Windows Exchange properly?

Cheers,
Mario

 

[itNGO]

You can indeed use VEEAM if you need single Mailbox/Item restore.
Else if you install QemuAgent Backups created with PBS are VSS-Consistent and a restore of an entire Exchange-Server will work.

 

[velocity08]

You can indeed use VEEAM if you need single Mailbox/Item restore.
Else if you install QemuAgent Backups created with PBS are VSS-Consistent and a restore of an entire Exchange-Server will work.

Hi @itNGO

We are starting to take a look at this scenario for a client.

may i ask whats your experience with restoring Exchange from backup?
Have you had the need to do this yet?

Looking at options of running 2 DAG's for HA and using PBS for backups but there is a lot of resource overlap with this scenario i feel.

thoughts?

""Cheers
G

 

[itNGO]

Hi @itNGO

We are starting to take a look at this scenario for a client.

may i ask whats your experience with restoring Exchange from backup?
Have you had the need to do this yet?

Looking at options of running 2 DAG's for HA and using PBS for backups but there is a lot of resource overlap with this scenario i feel.

thoughts?

""Cheers
G

Hi,

yes we restore the entire VM from the Backup-Point ob PBS and in a next step we restore Databases with VEEAM which does hourly backups of the Exchange-Databases. Works as expected and is straight forward.....

But even without VEEAM, the Databases mount and work. But we want to be more on time, we added VEEAM as additional layer.

Regards

 

[velocity08]

Hi,

yes we restore the entire VM from the Backup-Point ob PBS and in a next step we restore Databases with VEEAM which does hourly backups of the Exchange-Databases. Works as expected and is straight forward.....

But even without VEEAM, the Databases mount and work. But we want to be more on time, we added VEEAM as additional layer.

Regards

thanks @itNGO

But even without VEEAM, the Databases mount and work. But we want to be more on time, we added VEEAM as additional layer.

which Veeam service are you using please?

some feedback from our team indicated that just using PBS we could potentially miss out on emails since the last backup, so i'm guessing using veeam catches these missing emails/ data to the last 1 hour increment reducing RPO.

have you tested the restore process with both PBS + Veeam?
If so is there a big delay in restoring a few hours of data?

(i know this can be a loaded question as it can vary depending on spinning disk, ssd etc im just looking at a worst case potential variable)

""Cheers
G

 

[itNGO]

thanks @itNGO



which Veeam service are you using please?

some feedback from our team indicated that just using PBS we could potentially miss out on emails since the last backup, so i'm guessing using veeam catches these missing emails/ data to the last 1 hour increment reducing RPO.

have you tested the restore process with both PBS + Veeam?
If so is there a big delay in restoring a few hours of data?

(i know this can be a loaded question as it can vary depending on spinning disk, ssd etc im just looking at a worst case potential variable)

""Cheers
G

Well, we have customers with terrabytes of data... when your restore such a VM with PBS through 1Gbe, it takes time..... If you need to restore databases after VM restore with VEEAM, it also takes time. It works and is really straight forward. But as everything, it is limited by performance of Disk, Network and so on....

If you only use PBS and do a daily schedule backup, yes you miss what has happened over the day. This is where Mail-Archive-Systems kicks in at our customers as additional Layer. You can also consider to let PBS Backup run more often, which is quite fast as it is incremental. But PBS will never give you the option to pick that one Mail you are missing or instant Restore only a Exchange-Database which is corrupt. This is more hand made work then.

Also consider, if you use Outlook in Cache-Mode it will be another copy of the data which is currently not in backup. When you restore Exchange Point in Time, Outlook Client will sync forward again. But this is nothing to "count" on, just an additional "option".

For us the best "option" is to combine PBS and VEEAM for workloads like MSSQL or Exchange and Active Directory. Brings you best of both worlds.
Dumb VMs are only backed up by PBS, and the "special" ones have an extra VEEAM in Guest Backup....

Regards

 

[velocity08]

Well, we have customers with terrabytes of data... when your restore such a VM with PBS through 1Gbe, it takes time..... If you need to restore databases after VM restore with VEEAM, it also takes time. It works and is really straight forward. But as everything, it is limited by performance of Disk, Network and so on....

If you only use PBS and do a daily schedule backup, yes you miss what has happened over the day. This is where Mail-Archive-Systems kicks in at our customers as additional Layer. You can also consider to let PBS Backup run more often, which is quite fast as it is incremental. But PBS will never give you the option to pick that one Mail you are missing or instant Restore only a Exchange-Database which is corrupt. This is more hand made work then.

Also consider, if you use Outlook in Cache-Mode it will be another copy of the data which is currently not in backup. When you restore Exchange Point in Time, Outlook Client will sync forward again. But this is nothing to "count" on, just an additional "option".

For us the best "option" is to combine PBS and VEEAM for workloads like MSSQL or Exchange and Active Directory. Brings you best of both worlds.
Dumb VMs are only backed up by PBS, and the "special" ones have an extra VEEAM in Guest Backup....

Regards

Thank you for the additional information i'll have our team look into it as we already run Veeam for VMware just hadn't crossed the bridge to use Veeam with BPS.

Do you also use PMG in the setup?

ta

 

[itNGO]

Thank you for the additional information i'll have our team look into it as we already run Veeam for VMware just hadn't crossed the bridge to use Veeam with BPS.

Do you also use PMG in the setup?

ta

We also use PMG, yes....

 

[Tobias.F]

For us the best "option" is to combine PBS and VEEAM for workloads like MSSQL or Exchange and Active Directory. Brings you best of both worlds.
Dumb VMs are only backed up by PBS, and the "special" ones have an extra VEEAM in Guest Backup....

Interesting.

I migrated my home lab including Domain Controller and MS Exchange from Hyper-V to Proxmox VE. Before I was using Veeam B&R for all Hyper-V VMs (Linux and Windows), the file server share, the Host itself and for Windows PCs by agent.

Now, under PVE I have not yet found the right backup setup. I continue using Veeam for the Windows PCs, file share and Windows VMs (Exchange , Active Directory) . By PBS, so far, I backup all VMs incl. Exchange and DC, but not the file share. This "double backup" I consider as temporarily solution as I am not yet sure if only using PBS would satisfy my needs and if I really need to shutdown Windows VMs to get consistent backups of AD and Exchange by PBS.

Now I think about to leave it this way.

 

[sb-jw]

Please remember that PBS is "newly developed" and has already solved and fixed some of the old problems. It can also be used free of charge and offers a very good range of functions. There will certainly be more and more features coming in the future. I think that a backup application aware is also of interest to many people and could therefore certainly be part of it at some point. But you could already use hook scripts to resolve corresponding actions in the VM and, for example, instruct the database to write everything that is in the cache and freeze itself for a moment.

But yes, as of today, PBS cannot keep up with Veeam etc. - but I am personally very satisfied with the product so far and I think that the Proxmox team can definitely be very proud of their products!

 

[Tobias.F]

Please remember that PBS is "newly developed" and has already solved and fixed some of the old problems. It can also be used free of charge and offers a very good range of functions. There will certainly be more and more features coming in the future.

Please do not get me wrong. I like pbs. I am using pmg since a long time. I moved from Hyper-V to pve because for me it is the better system. And now, I figure out what the best way for me is to use pbs as it is by today. The gap I close in another way.