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Avamar 6 and image level backups of Exchange 2010 and SQL 2008
I have a VM server that's running Exchange 2010 and would like to protect both the image and the Exchange environments. My question is what is the best method to accomplish this? If I perform image level backups with file level recovery, will this cover everything that may be needed for a restore? Guess that I'm uncertain because the Exchange plug-in would not be used when doing an image level backup.
Also have the same questions for SQL 2008 running on a VM. Will an image level backup with file level recovery be enough for restoration? Just like above, the SQL plug-in will not work so will the databases be backed up correctly?
Thanks in advance,
Sheila
bcouhbor
59 Posts
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October 5th, 2011 14:00
You must use the backup agents to backup Exchange and SQL. Databases on Image level backups will not be consistent.
To backup the environments, you would need to do a guest level backup. i.e. Install the avamar agent, and the exchange VSS plugin on the Exchange server, and the SQL plugin on the sql server.
If you want to backup the OS, ensure you create windows datasets to skip the database files on the server, otherwise you'll be backing up database files that look totally different each time (consuming huge amounts of space on the grid), that will be no good to you (they'll be inconsistent)!
Besides the above points, the Exchange VSS plugin has some fairly useful functionality, like being able to backup databases in parrallel, and being able to do granular level restores (i'm still trying to get this to work). Well worth using.