Acronis® Recovery™ for Microsoft Exchange Quick Start Guide www.acronis.
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Table of Contents CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCING ACRONIS® RECOVERY™ FOR MICROSOFT EXCHANGE 5 1.1 WHAT IS ACRONIS® RECOVERY™ FOR MICROSOFT EXCHANGE? ................................................ 5 1.2 SUPPORTED MICROSOFT EXCHANGE VERSIONS .......................................................................... 6 1.3 SUPPORTED PLATFORMS ............................................................................................................. 7 1.
5.1.10 Echo Task Selection ......................................................................................................... 36 5.1.11 Restore Summary ............................................................................................................. 36 5.2 RESTORING MAILBOXES ........................................................................................................... 37 5.3 RESTORING INDIVIDUAL E-MAILS ........................................................................
Chapter 1. Introducing Acronis® Recovery™ for Microsoft Exchange 1.1 What is Acronis® Recovery™ for Microsoft Exchange? Acronis® Recovery™ for Microsoft Exchange offers a fast and reliable disaster recovery solution to protect your Microsoft Exchange data. It features a proven database backup technology that will drastically reduce disaster recovery time: you can be up and running again in minutes instead of hours.
Restore™, combined with automated Dial-tone restore mode, you can limit downtime of your Microsoft Exchange 2007 Server to only seconds. • Continuous Data Protection Continuously back up transactions to enable the complete restoration of Microsoft Exchange Server databases with minimum data loss. • Faster Disaster Recovery One-step Recovery and Automated Recovery to the point-of-failure help organizations meet aggressive Recovery Time Objectives (RTO).
Please note, Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange is not a cluster-aware product. 1.3 Supported Platforms • x86 (for Microsoft Exchange Server 2000/2003) • x86-64 1.4 Supported Operating Systems for Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange Agent For Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange: • Windows 2000 (SP4 Rollup 1) • Windows Server 2003 (both 32-bit and 64-bit versions) • Windows 2008 Server For Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange Small Business Edition: • Windows SBS 2003 • Windows SBS 2008 1.
• you can receive it after registering on the Acronis web site in case you download the product (also during installation of the product) Trial Serial Numbers Acronis allows you to have a trial serial number to be able to use Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange for 14 days without buying the product. You may obtain the trial serial number in one of the following ways: • in the CD box • contacting Acronis sales representatives. Visit http://www.acronis.
Chapter 2. Installation of Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange 2.1 Minimum System Requirements Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange requires the following hardware: • Pentium processor or higher • 1024 MB RAM • Mouse (recommended) 2.2 Installing Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange Components There are two ways to install Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange components – local and remote.
It is recommended that you install Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange Management Console first. This will allow you to install Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange Agent remotely from the Management Console to any networked computer. 2.3 Installing Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange Agent Remotely To install Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange Agent remotely on a database server, you first need Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange Management Console installed on the local computer.
3. Enter a serial number for the selected product. The Next button will not be active until you enter a serial number. 4. Select the computer in the Computer field: enter a computer name manually or click Browse… and select the required computer from the tree. Enter a User name and password into the corresponding fields to access the selected computer. By selecting the Save password check-box you can save the password for future connections. 5.
Chapter 3. Getting started with Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange 3.1 Running Acronis Recovery Management Console for MS Exchange To run Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange Management Console, select Start -> Programs -> Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange Management Console -> Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange Management Console.
The workspace consists of the main area with operation icons, as well as the menu, the toolbar, and the common tasks bar. On the left there is a sidebar featuring the Computers or Help panels. Note, that the content shown in the main window will change depending on whether Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange Management Console is disconnected or connected to a remote server. 3.
3.5 Discovering Servers The purpose of discovering servers is to find servers on the network automatically and add them to the list in the Computers pane. The first time the program is executed, the list in the Computers pane list is empty and you will be prompted to discover servers. In order to be able to create backup and recovery operations on servers, you should launch the search or add servers to the list manually.
3.7 Connecting to a Remote Microsoft Exchange Server In order to perform any operation on a remote Microsoft Exchange server, you must first connect to it. Once connected, you can manage tasks: set up backup/restore options on remote database servers and schedule backup, restore and backup location clean-up tasks. To establish a remote connection, select a server in the Computers pane and click Connect to a Remote Computer in the right pane.
Chapter 4. Creating Backup Archives Backup is crucial to maintaining a timely and consistent record of your Microsoft Exchange servers for recovery in case of failure. Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange offers an easy and flexible process for creation of backup archives. 4.1 Backing up Databases To restore lost data or roll back Microsoft Exchange Server databases to a certain state, you must first create a backup file.
If you are not sure which backup strategy to choose, use Schedule a backup task with Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange Assistant (selected by default). If you know which backup type to use for your data, select the Schedule a backup task manually option. In this case you will have to define backup types and schedule parameters for backup tasks. Select Use continuous data protection technology option to enable CDP. In this case you will have to schedule your full backups.
4.1.3 Selecting Items to Back Up In this step of the wizard you have to specify which items to back up. In the left pane of the window select an information store with Microsoft Exchange installed and expand it to view and specify storage groups to back up. In case an information store is selected, all associated storage groups will also be selected.
exist phisically after the restore, but they will not be mounted, and so will not be usable. Though Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange allows backing up and further restoring of separate users accounts. The right pane will display the information store name, Microsoft Exchange version, the installed operating system and amount of storage groups. Selecting Storage Groups to Back Up Select the specific storage group you want to back up.
Important! Do not enter the login and password in the Folder (“ftp://login:password@ftpserver”); the product will not process this command. field Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange guarantees the integrity of the backup chain only in a separate archive. Thus, creation of a new archive will start a new chain of backups. Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange behavior does not depend on what you want to back up (the entire information store or only a separate storage group).
• Day - select this option if you want to back up the selected data daily Click Next to continue. Server Load During a Week Specify the workload distribution on the Exchange server during a week. The Assistant will use this information to define a backup schedule according to your company’s server’s load. The load information is used to determine when and what type of backups to create to avoid data loss (backup creation frequency), as well as when to execute the operation.
Initial Task Starting Specify a time for applying the selected scheme: • Now – select this option to execute the scheduled task immediately after you finish the wizard • On the specified date and time – the selected scheme will be applied on the specified date. Note that if there is no full backup when the first incremental backup is to be performed, a full backup will be performed independently of the actual date on which it is scheduled.
4.1.6 Setting Backup Scheduling Parameters If you used Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange Assistant, it will create a schedule for the choices you made. Click Edit to change the existing schedule settings. If you decided to define the backup strategy manually, you have to set a schedule for each backup type. Note, Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange allows you to set multiple schedules for one task. For example, you should not only backup your data once a week, but also on the last day of each month.
4.1.9 Backup Summary The final stage of the backup is the summary window, which displays the list of operations to be performed. Click Finish to save the created schedule or start the backup creation task immediately. You will be redirected to the Task List automatically, where you can view and edit created tasks. 4.2 Backing up Mailboxes Brick-level (document level) backup is the most flexible type of backup.
4.3.2 Compression Level Select the compression level for the backup. With higher compression ratios the archive file size will be smaller, but the backup process may take longer.
4.3.3 Backup Priority You can set up the backup process priority: • Low - the backup process will run slower, but it will not influence other processes running on your computer • Normal - the backup process will run with normal priority • High - the backup process will run faster, but it may influence other processes running on your computer Changing the priority of a backup process can make it run faster or slower, but it can also adversely affect the performance of other programs running simultaneously.
4.3.4 Backup Protection Password The preset is No Password. You can password protect your archives so that they will be inaccessible to others. Enter a password in the text field and confirm it. The password is case sensitive. Please keep in mind that in the Restore Data wizard, Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange will ask for a password after you select a folder within the archive location.
4.3.5 Backup Type Substitution You need to create full backup of data before creating an incremental one. If for some reason a full backup does not exist, you will need to create a full backup independently of the backup strategy you have configured. 4.3.6 Bandwidth Throttling You can limit the bandwidth used by the backup process so that network resources will be available for other processes.
To set the desired data transfer speed, check the Enable bandwidth throttling parameter. Select a maximum bandwidth value from the drop-down list or enter a value manually. 4.3.7 Additional Settings 1. Validate backup once it has been created When enabled, the program will verify the integrity of the archive immediately after it is created. To validate the archive data integrity you must have all of the backups in the series (full and incremental backups) available in the same location.
It will be enabled only if you create independent full backups (Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange will check the specified backup strategy). In all other cases Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange will truncate transaction logs, since creating an archive chain (full and incremental backups) is impossible with transaction logs not truncated after the first full backup.
Chapter 5. Restoring the Backup Data Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange restores storage groups and mailboxes from previously created backup archives. 5.1 Restoring Information Stores Launch the Restore Information Store wizard by clicking on the restore operation icon in the main workspace. 5.1.1 Restoration Time Selection In the first step of the Restore Data wizard you will select when to run the restoration process.
5.1.3 Selecting a Backup Location Select the appropriate backup location in the tree or specify the path to it manually in the Path field below the tree. Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange stores up to ten locations for the last archives created in a special folder – Recent Backup Locations - so you can easily locate the appropriate archive. You can also select specific Acronis backup locations (such as Acronis Backup Server).
Click Next to continue. 5.1.5 Providing a Password If there are any password-protected backup archives in the location you have selected, you will need to enter the password to restore your data from the archives. Click Next to continue. 5.1.6 Restore Point Selection Specify to which state you want to restore your data. Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange offers four ways for restoring your data: • to the point of failure – the data will be restored to the state at the point of failure.
• to the time of the latest backup – choosing this option will restore your data to the state when the last backup was created. Restoring to the latest backup will be faster, than restoration to the point of failure. • to a specific point in time - Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange allows you to specify a date and time to restore your data from. Note, to be able to restore to a specific point in time, Microsoft Exchange transaction logs must be backed up.
To overwrite previously created dial tone databases generated by third-party tools, select the corresponding check box. This step eliminates the need to delete the old databases manually. After selecting the appropriate option click Next to continue. 5.1.7 Content Selection Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange restores information stores and separate storage groups. Select a database server from the tree in the left pane. Restoring Information Stores Choose an information store to restore.
Click Next to continue. 5.1.8 Restore Options Select the options for the restoration process (Pre/Post commands, restoration process priority etc.). You can Use default options or Set the options manually. In the latter case, the settings will be applied only to the current restore task. 5.1.9 Selecting Start Parameters You can run a restore task manually or specify the frequency (Daily, Weekly or Monthly). 5.1.
If you click Cancel, no databases will be restored. Important! Clear the Microsoft Outlook cache after the restore operation completion for the correct data representation. Click Finish to save the schedule or start the restore task immediately. 5.2 Restoring Mailboxes Launch the Restore Mailboxes wizard by clicking on the restore operation icon in the main workspace. 5.
Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange offers four ways for restoring your data: • to the time of the latest backup – choosing this option will restore your e-mails to the state when the last backup was created. So restoration to the latest backup will be faster, than restoration to the point of failure. • At the time of the selected backup – select this option to choose a backup from which to restore. A list of backups will be available by clicking on the Select from the list of backups link.
• Search by person – select this option to specify e-mail addresses of a sender and/or recipient • Search by date – select this option to specify the period of time (From and To) to search for required e-mail • Search in – select this option to specify the following parameters: o Message header – Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange will search for the required text only in messages’ headers o Messages with attachments only – Acronis Recovery for MS Exchange will search for the required text only in messages wi
5.4 Setting Default Restore Options To view or edit the default restore options, select Tools -> Options -> Default Restoration Options from the main program menu. You can also edit restore options while creating a restore task. 5.4.1 Pre/Post Commands You can specify commands or batch files to be automatically executed before and after the restore procedure. Click Edit to open the Edit Command window and input the command, its arguments and the working directory, or browse folders to find a batch file.
With Recreate absent accounts … checkbox selected, missing in the Active Directory accounts, whose mailboxes are being restored, will be recreated with the specified password (by default the password is P@ssw0rd). You may also disable these accounts after the restore process complete. To associate restored mailboxes with their user accounts in Active Directory, select the corresponding parameter. Otherwise you will have to reconnect all restored mailboxes to their users manually.
