Exchange 2010 DAG Backup Best Practices

We backup the passive node only in our 2010 DAG environment.

Hi Rob,

According to "EMC Avamar 6.1 for Exchange VSS User Guide", I think we can only backup passive databases for data recovery on Exchange 2010 DAG environment. We don't need to backup both of the active and passive databases. Because Avamar will use Preferred Server Order List(PSOL) to select all passive databases which will contain all the databases. You can refer below picture and description.

And I also suggest you to refer to following sections of the guide.

"Federated backups of Exchange Server 2010 DAG environments"

“DAG federated backup (Exchange Server 2010 only)”

“Restoring from a DAG federated backup”

Picture and description:

In an Exchange Server 2010 DAG environment, passive and active databases can be replicated across multiple nodes for high availability. Backups are created from the passive databases, which can reduce the impact on production servers and resources. To back up all databases in the DAG environment using conventional backup, requires that all passive databases be backed up on each Exchange server, even if the same database has multiple passive copies replicated across several nodes. However, with the Avamar federated backup for Exchange Server 2010 DAGs, you can back up Exchange databases under the DAG name rather than each server. With a federated backup, you can specify the order that Avamar polls each server in the DAG for passive copies of each Exchange database. Avamar federated backups of Exchange Server 2010 DAGs use several key features: Avamar Cluster Client Configuration, Avamar Cluster Client Resource, and Preferred Server Order List.

Thanks Bill and Leo, I guess where I'm confused is the fact that there is an option to backup the active database. I'm trying to figure out in what scenario that would make sense.

You would have to backup the active copy of a database if that is the only copy and you want to protect the database.  Think of a public folder database, for instance.