In my last post, I explained why I am strictly against scheduling backups. However, when it comes to restores I am a big fan of schedules. Another golden rule that belongs in every backup strategy is the backup of backups rule.

Schedule restores

Now before you check whether your backup software has a feature for scheduling restores, read on to see what I mean by “scheduling restores.” Most backup experts recommend verifying regularly that backups are working properly. However, in my view, this is not enough. Just like manual backups are not a professional way to secure data, checking every now and then if the backed up data is really on the disks or tapes is certainly insufficient.

First of all, it is not very likely that you will really do it regularly. Be honest. When did you check your backups the last time? Second, it is not enough to check if the data was backed up. You really have to test the restored data in an environment that you prepared for this purpose.

The statistical data of failed restore attempts vary depending on who hired the analysts, but, I think, 50% is a reasonable working hypothesis. One thing is for sure—the main reason for failed restore attempts is because restores haven’t been tested regularly.

Thus, my advice is to schedule a disaster recovery day in your IT department every two months, or at least every six months depending on the importance of your data. On this disaster recovery day, you can simulate a worst case scenario where a virus or a fire wipes out all your data. Try to restore your Active Directory, your Exchange servers, your databases, and user files in a virtual test environment. Just like a fire department needs regular training with real fires, an IT department needs to practice restoring data on real virtual servers. You will be surprised how you burn your fingers when you try this the first time.

Such a disaster recovery day has a nice side effect. Your management will realize that your IT department has more work to do than resetting user passwords. And if someone from management asks if this is really necessary, you can ask back if anyone has ever calculated the chances for the company to survive a full data loss because of a virus outbreak.

Offsite backups

Please don’t think that I am paranoid, but backing up backups is indeed essential. Of course, I don’t recommend installing a second backup solution that secures the data for your regular backup system. What I mean are offsite backups. While big companies have always done this by storing tapes at secure places far away from the company site, small organizations often neglect the risk of data loss as a result of a fire.

Offsite backups has become a new trend for two reasons. Firstly, the rise of CDP solutions has increased the likelihood that a virus not only destroys the data on all live systems but also the backups on storage systems. Erasing data in a tape library is much more difficult for malware than manipulating the disks on a server or storage system. Perhaps this is the main downside of CDP compared to traditional tape backups.

Secondly, new online backup solutions made offsite backups affordable for small companies. However, I don’t recommend replacing your on-premises backup system with a cloud backup solution. I wouldn’t hand over control of such a vital component of your company. But backing up backups in the cloud is an easy and affordable way to secure your backups from fires. And since special software is required to access the cloud storage, it is highly unlikely that a virus would be able to take this hurdle.

The good news is that CDP (contrary to tape backups) is perfectly suitable for offsite backups via online backups. Since your CDP solutions already collected all the data in your network at your central storage system, it is the ideal source for your second-level backup.

And just in case you worry about handing over all your organization’s data to a third party, encryption technology can perfectly protect your data before it leaves your company site. You can use the encryption feature of the cloud backup software, or you can use your on-premises backup software to encrypt your data before the cloud backup software touches it.

What about using tapes for offsite backups? To be honest, in my opinion, working with tape backups is another no-no. I had so many troubles in my IT career with the reliability of backup tapes and tape libraries that I now think that tape backups are not even a good solution for offsite backups. But I know that this point is highly disputed, and so I had better wait another year or two until “Don’t use tape backups” becomes my fifth golden backup rule.

• FREE: EASEUS Todo Backup Free Edition (2)
• VMware Backups – Troubleshoot the Consolidate Helper-0 backup error (1)
• 62.4% of SMEs do not use email archiving (0)
• DHCP backup and restore (3)
• My 4 golden backup rules – Part 1: Don’t schedule backups and don’t configure backup jobs (16)

Data backups are one of the most important tasks for any IT department. In my view, they are even more important than security. It can get nasty if a virus knocks down your network for a few hours. However, if you lose essential data, it could knock down your whole company forever. If you need some more motivation to read on, check out these statistics according to which 60% of companies that have lost their data will shut down within 6 months.

The problem is that admins are often busy with keeping the network running or meeting project deadlines. Backup management is often the first task that is neglected when admins are under time pressure because daily operations are usually not affected by a faulty backup strategy. But this is only true until a backup is really needed.

I have quite some experience with backup strategies and different kinds of backup software. While it is impossible to cover all relevant topics in two blog posts, I’ve outlined my four golden backup strategy rules. You’ll notice that some of them are perhaps a bit uncommon.

Don’t schedule backups

If you open a book about data backup, the first thing you usually read is that it is essential to not run backups manually and, therefore, it is essential that you schedule backup tasks. While the antecedent in this sentence is true, the conclusion is wrong.

It is true that backups should always run automatically without the need for human intervention. However, if you are still working with a backup strategy where terms such as full, incremental, or differential backups appear, then you missed an important technological development of the last years. I am talking about Continuous Data Protection (CDP).

With CDP, you don’t schedule backup because the data is secured at the moment it is created. The important difference from conventional backups is that you don’t lose the data that has been created between the last backup and the time when you need to restore the data.

While it might have been sufficient to run backups once per day, ten years ago, it is, in my opinion, grossly negligent to continue to pursue such a backup strategy. Most businesses now depend a lot more on digitally stored data, and any kind of data loss is no longer acceptable. A backup strategy that allows for possible data loss is what I call a “data loss strategy.”

I think, CDP is now ready for prime time. The teething troubles of the first years have been solved. Thus I see no reason why anyone would still need to schedule backups.

Don’t configure backup jobs

Backup software that relies on scheduled backups has another important downside. Depending on the size of your organization, managing backup jobs can be quite complicated. Backup solutions of major vendors have become quite bloated over the years with myriad features that appear to be quite useful at first but, if not properly configured, only increase the likelihood that restores will fail.

While I am in general a fan of bloated, feature-rich software, backup software is an exception. The difference from other software is that you can usually easily verify whether your setup works properly or not. However, with backups you often only realize that something must have been wrong with your configuration once you try to restore data.

Of course, you also have to configure CDP software. However, the configuration of CDP software is much simpler than that of conventional backup solutions because you essentially only have to configure which servers or clients you want to back up and some general settings such as retention periods. This leaves less room for mistakes and increases the probability that restores really work when you need them.

Some vendors of conventional backup software have added CDP features because they don’t want to miss the trend. However, they still need to sell the legacy code of their old software; since CDP and scheduled backups don’t really fit together well, things often get even more complicated if you use a conventional backup tool for CDP. Hence, I recommend moving to a CDP specialist and saying goodbye to your beloved backup software that you have been using for the last ten years or so.

In my next post I will discuss offsite backups and disaster recovery.

• FREE: EASEUS Todo Backup Free Edition (2)
• VMware Backups – Troubleshoot the Consolidate Helper-0 backup error (1)
• 62.4% of SMEs do not use email archiving (0)
• DHCP backup and restore (3)
• My 4 golden backup rules – Part 2: Schedule restores and back up backups (1)

Recover deleted Active Directory objects

Blackbird recovery offers three ways to restore deleted AD objects: the Recycle Bin in the Blackbird Management Suite console, the Recycle Bin in the Active Directory Users and Computers interface (ADUC), and through the Deleted Objects tab of the object properties in ADUC or right clicking on the object in ADUC.

Note that this Recycle Bin shouldn’t be confused with the new Recycle Bin feature in Windows Server 2008 R2. As you will see, Blackbird recovery’s functionality goes far beyond this new Windows feature.

If you want to recover deleted objects in a certain container, you can do this via the OU’s properties in ADUC. As mentioned in one of my earlier posts, the Blackbird Management Suite adds part of its functionality to Microsoft’s Active Directory tools.

If you accidentally deleted an OU, you can recover the container with all its child objects through the Recycle Bin. It is also possible to recover single or selected objects this way.

After you decide which objects to recover, you have to choose if you want to use the audit data or the backup of one of the scheduled backups (collectors). The audit data contains the exact state of the object it had right before it was deleted (CDP).

If you restore a single object from a scheduled backup, you can view the object’s attribute values first, before you rebuild the object. This is a useful feature if you are uncertain which of the backups you need.

Roll back Active Directory objects

You can also roll back an Active Directory object—that is, restore attribute values of a previous state. For this the object still has to exist in Active Directory. You can roll back AD objects in the Blackbird Management Suite console, either with Blackbird recovery or Blackbird auditor.

It is also possible to roll back objects in ADUC. The context menu of each object in ADUC offers a new Rollback function after you installed Blackbird RSAT extensions. Objects with child objects also have the “Rollback child objects” menu point.

Rollbacks through ADUC or the Blackbird recovery console only allow you to restore attribute values from scheduled backups. Very useful is here that you can compare the attribute values with the current state of the objects before you initiate the rollback.

If you want to roll back an object using audit data—that is, leverage Blackbird’s CDP feature—you have to use Blackbird auditor in the Blackbird Management Suite console. The main purpose of Blackbird auditor is to monitor changes of AD objects. (For more information please read the article about auditor express.)

However, Blackbird auditor has this really cool feature that allows you to not only view in detail how a certain object was changed (for example, by whom) but also roll back the object to the state before it was modified if you don’t like the modifications. And, best of all, you don’t have to restore the whole object but only the attributes you need.

Rollback and recovery of Group Policy Objects (GPOs)

Restoring Group Policy Objects (GPOs) works similar to restoring common Active Directory objects. The main difference is that no CDP is supported for GPO backups at an individual setting level. Instead GPOs can be restored from scheduled backups or automatic versions created by Blackbird. Blackbird recovery senses changes made to GPOs and will automatically create a version for a GPO that has been opened for editing if there have been no changes for 10 minutes. These automatic versions and version created during a scheduled backup are available when performing a restore or rollback.

Deleted GPOs can be restored from the Recycle Bin in the Blackbird Management Suite console. It can be difficult to find the correct GPO because the names don’t appear in the Recycle Bin. However, you can view the GPO settings from the backup if you are unsure which GPO to restore.

Rollbacks of GPOs can be launched from Microsoft’s Group Policy Management console. Before you roll back a GPO you can compare it with the current state in Active Directory (see screenshot). This feature is not only helpful for restores, but it can also be very useful if you just want to find out how a GPO was configured in the past.

Conclusion

I did not describe all features of Blackbird recovery in this series. For example, I didn’t cover Active Directory Schema and DNS data backups. However, the configuration of these features work similarly.

The tight integration of Blackbird recovery with Microsoft’s management tools is not only very convenient but also helps you to learn how to use Blackbird recovery quickly. After a while it feels as if Blackbird recovery is just a new Windows feature.

I think it became clear in my review that Blackbird recovery offers many features that common Windows backup solutions lack. Blackbird recovery is a highly specialized Active Directory backup solution that ensures that no precious directory data is lost and can be restored easily and quickly. The integration with the other tools of the Blackbird Management Suite completes the powerful Active Directory backup software.

To participate in the competition for a chance to win a Blackbird recovery license, worth $1,800 USD, please send an email to:

with the subject line:

Blackbird recovery.

You can also use this contact form.

The deadline of this contest is August 31, 2010.

• Microsoft Exam 70-640 – Active Directory trusts – Sample question (0)
• Microsoft Exam 70-640 – Active Directory trusts (0)
• Microsoft Exam 70-640 – Active Directory Forests and Domains – Sample question (5)
• Microsoft Exam 70-640 – Active Directory Forests and Domains (0)
• How to synchronize Windows Server 2008 with an external time server (6)

Oops!Backup’s ReverseDelta stores file changes in so-called delta files. These delta files contain changes at the byte level. There is some overhead if only a few bytes are changed, but this can save a lot disk space on your backup drive if you have to secure large files as they are common with database systems. For instance, a conventional backup system will store a full 10GB database if only one record has been changed, but Oops’Backup would only require a few MBs of additional space. The tool allows you to configure the file size on which ReverseDelta is invoked, and you can also specify the number of versions after which a full copy of a file is preserved.

The latest backup will always contain the full copy of all files. This allows you to use Windows Explorer for restores. The delta files are only needed if you want to go back to an earlier point in time. In this case, you have to use the tool’s user interface to restore the file. My only complaint here is that the navigation pane on the left side is missing, which makes it difficult sometimes to locate a file if you are unsure in which folder it is in. In Oops!Backup’s defense it ought to be said that you can also search for files. What I like about the search function is that it displays all file versions with their backup time.

Oops!Backup supports Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) backups. Hence, in theory, it should also be possible to backup open files. I tried to backup a TrueCrypt file of a mounted volume, but Oops!Backup didn’t detect the changes. However, this is a problem specific to TrueCrypt. It is interesting to note that Oops!Backup detected the changes whenever I unmounted a volume. The fact that it uses the Windows File System Events to detect file changes made this possible. Actually, most backup tools I tried so far weren’t able to detect changes in TrueCrypt files at all because TrueCrypt neither changes the “modified Date attribute” nor does it set the archive bit. By the way, the size of my TrueCrypt test file was 1GB, but thanks to the ReverseDelta technology Oops!Backup only needed 1,8MB to save the changed file.

Oops!Backup has another important advantage over conventional backup tools when it comes to securing the data on laptops. Usually, on mobile computers an external drive is used to store the backup. The problem is that conventional backups have to be scheduled. So you have to make sure that the backup device is connected during the backup time. I have been travelling a lot lately and even though I always carried my external disk, I found it very difficult to make sure that my external disk was always connected at the right time. As a result, I was often without backup for several days.

As with other CDP tools, Oops!Backup doesn’t require schedules. You only have to configure the time interval when the tool checks whether new data is available and when old file versions will be purged . If the backup device is not connected, then Oops!Backup will just log the changes. If you hover over its Systray icon, you will be informed about the number of files that have to be saved. Oops!Backup will detect whenever you connect the backup drive and then start the backup automatically. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about backup schedules when you are travelling with your laptop. Just plug in the external drive whenever it is convenient and your backup will be up to date.

The tool’s dashboard and the history will inform you at what times backups have been performed. If you double click on a backup job, you will get information about the files that have been secured and the files that have been removed from the latest backup because they have been deleted by the user. The dashboard also tells you how much space the backup occupies and how much space is still available on the backup device.

My overall impression of Oops!Backup is very positive. I have been testing countless backup tools in my career as an IT pro. Oops!Backup has a unique combination of ease-of-use and effectiveness. Prices range between $16 and $37, depending on the number of licenses you buy. Please note that Oops!Backup is not a system backup tool. You can only use it to secure data files.

If you’d like to have the chance to win one of the 15 Oops!Backup licenses, please send an email to

with the subject line

Oops!Backup.

The deadline for entering this contest is March 7, 2010.

• FREE: EASEUS Todo Backup Free Edition (2)
• VMware Backups – Troubleshoot the Consolidate Helper-0 backup error (1)
• 62.4% of SMEs do not use email archiving (0)
• DHCP backup and restore (3)
• My 4 golden backup rules – Part 2: Schedule restores and back up backups (1)

The name Oops!Backup fits well for a CDP backup solution because it protects users from their own mistakes. If you accidentally delete or overwrite a text document on which you have been working for the last few hours, then yesterday’s backup won’t be helpful. Oops!Backup secures user data every hour by default, but you can also configure it to check for changed files every five minutes. This makes the tool a “near CDP program” , the difference being that real CDP backup solutions save new data immediately.

In my opinion, five-minute intervals are enough for client computers. In my test, this interval worked fine and didn’t slow down my computer. Actually, one of the disadvantages of conventional backup tools is that they slow down the computer during backups because they have to scan the file system for changed files.

In contrast, Oops!Backup listens to Windows file system events in order to detect file changes. Thus, when the time of the backup is reached, Oops!Backup already knows which files have been modified and only these are accessed during the backup process. In most cases, the backup is finished after one or two seconds.

What I like most about CDP solutions is that you don’t have to mess with incremental or differential backups. There is just one backup job, and that’s it. This not only makes the backup job configuration easier, it also tremendously simplifies restoring files. To restore a file, you only have to select a snapshot and you will get the file’s state at that point in time. If you work with incremental backups, you have to find the corresponding backup job first. If you don’t know when the file was last changed, this can be quite time consuming.

Moreover, with differential and incremental backups, if you have to restore all files in case of a disaster recovery, you will also restore files that have been deleted deliberately since the last full backup. Hence, you will never get the exact state before the disaster. Oops!Backup, on the other hand, removes deleted files automatically from the latest backup. Therefore, any snapshot represents the exact state of the file system at that point in time.

If you’d like to have the chance to win one of the 15 Oops!Backup licenses, please send an email to

with the subject line

Oops!Backup.

The deadline for entering this contest is March 8, 2010.

• FREE: EASEUS Todo Backup Free Edition (2)
• VMware Backups – Troubleshoot the Consolidate Helper-0 backup error (1)
• 62.4% of SMEs do not use email archiving (0)
• DHCP backup and restore (3)
• My 4 golden backup rules – Part 2: Schedule restores and back up backups (1)

Freeagent is available in three sizes: 320GB, 500GB and 750GB. I opted for the biggest drive because I like to keep old backups as long as possible. Amazon offers it for less than $200. You can connect the drive through USB or eSATA. For the latter you need an eSATA card adapter. I think, it is worth the extra 30 bucks because it is much faster. USB 2.0 supports up to 480 Mbps and eSATA 3 Gbps. You won’t always reach this speed, though, because there are bottlenecks like drive speed or the performance of your laptop.

Autobackup is a nifty backup tool supporting continuous data protection (CDP). The software detects all changes made to the file system and secures them to your external drive, immediately. You can decide how many different versions of a file you want to keep. To my experience most data losses happen not because of hardware defects, but because of user mistakes. Sometimes one realizes that a file was accidently or deliberately overwritten with wrong data months later. To keep multiple versions of all data files is essential for every backup strategy.

A downside of CDP backup solutions is that they can slow down your computer, significantly if you misconfigured it. Windows and also many applications tend to save data continuously to your hard disk. Usually, it doesn’t make sense to backup this data with a CDP tool. I experimented for some weeks with Autobackup. The best way, I found, is to include your profile path (C:\users\your_profile under Vista and C:\Documents And Settings\your_profile under Windows XP) and then exclude the path used by applications to store their data (C:\user\your_profile\AppData\ under Vista and C:\Dokuments and Settings\your_profile\Application Data under XP).

I recommend keeping an eye on Autobackup in the beginning to see if it secures unnecessary files. If you have Google Desktop installed, you should be very cautious. It crashed my Vista machine every time I logged on because Autobackup tried to backup the index where Google Desktop added data, continuously . If UAC gets on your nerves whenever the Freeagent software launches, I suggest disabling the UAC prompts.

I wouldn’t use Autobackup to backup your system drive. It will not only strain your computer, constantly, I think, it will also be difficult to make use of this backup if your system drive ever fails. If you have Vista on your laptop, I would use the backup tool that comes with the operating system. It can create a complete image of your whole computer. If your system drive fails, you will be able to restore your laptop, easily. Since the image is created while the operating system is online, I would make sure that all applications are closed and I wouldn’t use the computer while the backup is running. In theory, the backup utility should be smart enough to cope with changes made to the hard disk during the backup process. XP also has a Backup Utility that supports backup to hard drives. It is not as smart as Vista’s counterpart, though. Keep your hands off the computer while the backup is running!

• Visualizing your server rack with Microsoft Visio 2010 (10)
• FREE: EASEUS Todo Backup Free Edition (2)
• VMware Backups – Troubleshoot the Consolidate Helper-0 backup error (1)
• 62.4% of SMEs do not use email archiving (0)
• FREE: DriverView – View drivers (0)

I tested the predecessor DPM 2006 thoroughly and interviewed Microsoft’ product manager, also because I wrote a review for the German magazine iX. It was one of the first affordable CDP solutions and I already hoped at that time that we could give up our old fashioned archive-bit-based backup solution. Even though I liked DPM 2006 as such, we couldn’t make this move because backups of the Windows system state, Exchange, and SQL Server were not supported. Symantec’s Continuous Protection Server (CPS) which was integrated later in Backup Exec 10d and Backup Exec 11d was better, but I don’t like this mixture of conventional and CDP backup.

So I appreciate it that Microsoft has come out with a new version in just two years containing all the features we need. I reviewed DPM 2007 Beta 1 some time ago. Although a couple of important features such as brick-level backups for Exchange mailboxes and online backups of Virtual Server VMs were not working yet, I started to like Microsoft’s new backup software. New in this release is document-level restore for SharePoint and bare metal recovery.

I am quite curious now to try the final and I also want to check how reliable it is. Another thing I didn’t test yet is how well it supports backups to tape libraries. I only made backups to a single tape drive with the beta which worked quite well. But working with a tape library is something different. I am going to blog about my tests soon. You might want to check out DPM’s Technet site meanwhile.

• eDiscovery in Exchange – Part 4: Restoring a mailbox database with DPM 2010 (0)
• FREE: EASEUS Todo Backup Free Edition (2)
• VMware Backups – Troubleshoot the Consolidate Helper-0 backup error (1)
• 62.4% of SMEs do not use email archiving (0)
• DHCP backup and restore (3)

From this it follows that DPM 2007 won’t be able to protect Windows 2000 since it doesn’t support VSS. The advantage of this move is that DPM 2007 can secure Windows XP and Windows Vista which wasn’t possible with DPM 2006.

It certainly makes sense to rely more on VSS. However, I think that for many the lack of Windows 2000 support will be a knock down argument against DPM 2007. If you have just one Windows 2000 server left in your datacenter, you probably won’t give up your current backup software and move to Microsoft’s solution.

We got rid of our Windows 2000 systems already shortly after Windows 2003 was released. We have only about 30 servers, so it was not such a big deal. For us the better VSS integration is a plus. I am particularly interested in backing up Virtual Server 2005 with DPM 2007 which also relies on VSS.

If you are interested in how DPM 2007 secures data, you should check out this Microsoft video. It is quite interesting and well-explained.

• eDiscovery in Exchange – Part 4: Restoring a mailbox database with DPM 2010 (0)
• FREE: EASEUS Todo Backup Free Edition (2)
• VMware Backups – Troubleshoot the Consolidate Helper-0 backup error (1)
• 62.4% of SMEs do not use email archiving (0)
• DHCP backup and restore (3)

I don’t know, if you were always able to follow me in my review about Backup Exec 11d and CPS. The interaction between these two tools is quite confusing, sometimes. It took me quite a while to figure out how everything works. The fact that one has to configure continuous backups of files in CPS and continuous backups of Exchange in Backup Exec is quite strange in my view.

Symantec tried to unite two different backup paradigms in one product using two separate tools. From my point of view, this unification is a complete failure. Continuous data protection and conventional backups don’t fit together.

I mentioned it already in a former post. It makes much more sense to use a CDP tool which also supports backups to tapes. Microsoft’s DPM v2, for example, is much easier to configure and to handle than Backup Exec 11d and CPS, because it doesn’t have all these functions needed for conventional backups.

Symantec obviously wants save its investments in Backup Exec. If you just need continuous data protection, you have to buy the whole product even though you don’t intend to run conventional backups, anymore. This makes Backup Exec more expensive than it has to be. In the long run this might be a big handicap.

We’ve been using Backup Exec since the time it was still owned by Seagate. As things stand now, it is quite probable that we’ll move to DPM v2 as soon as the final is out. It is really a pity!

• FREE: EASEUS Todo Backup Free Edition (2)
• VMware Backups – Troubleshoot the Consolidate Helper-0 backup error (1)
• 62.4% of SMEs do not use email archiving (0)
• DHCP backup and restore (3)
• My 4 golden backup rules – Part 2: Schedule restores and back up backups (1)

Backup Exec is only able to backup up Exchange continuously if the CPS agent is installed on the Exchange server. However, you have to configure the corresponding backup job in Backup Exec, not in CPS, like with CDP backups of files.

You create a normal Backup Exec job to secure the Exchange server. The settings for Exchange backups have a new option which allows you to specify the intervals between recovery points. The minimum interval is 15 minutes. Therefore, Backup Exec 11d only supports near continuous data protection for Exchange backups while it can secure files continuously, i.e. whenever a file changes.

As backup destination, you have to use a backup-to-disk folder. This folder is managed by Backup Exec, not by the CPS. This is another difference when compared to file backups with CPS. This means that you have to setup a second backup job that secures the data of the backup-to-disk folder to the tape library.

Restores of Exchange data also have to be configured in Backup Exec. You can restore the complete Information Store or each mailbox individually. Backup Exec supports brick-level backups, i.e. you can restore single items like individual e-mails.

So, CDP backups of Exchange are managed with the user interface of Backup Exec. You create the backup jobs there, monitor them there and use it for restores. This is quite different to CDP backups of file servers with CPS.

In the next post of this series, you’ll read the conclusion of my review about Backup Exec 11d and CPS .

• Troubleshooting Exchange eDiscovery: Errors due to lack of Full Access permission (0)
• Troubleshoot Exchange eDiscovery: This mailbox exceeded the maximum number of corrupted items (0)
• Exchange ActiveSync Mailbox Policies and Exchange Remote Wipe (1)
• How to change the allowable message size in Exchange 2010 (0)
• eDiscovery in Exchange – Part 5: Export and search (0)

To copy the back-up data on the CPS to tape for long term archiving, you have to configure a back-up job with Backup Exec. If there is a CPS agent and a Backup Exec agent installed on the server, then Backup Exec will allow you to select all Protected Sources on this CPS system with just a mouse click.

You can setup a so-called SmartLink connection between a CPS job and the Backup Exec job by copying the data to tape. SmartLink is just a simple command that will run before a Backup Exec job starts. This allows Backup Exec to check the status of the CPS job.

The CPS manual talks about monitoring CPS jobs, but all it really does is, add some information of the CPS job to the log file of the Backup Exec job. This way, the Backup Exec administrator gets informed whenever problems occur during the CPS backup.

Backup operators can restore data from tape that was originally secured by CPS, directly to the original backup source. In Backup Exec, you can’t even see that these files were secured by CPS, i.e. it seems as if Backup Exec secured this data from the original server.

In the next post of this series, I will explain, how you can continuously secure an Exchange Server with Backup Exec 11d and CPS.

• FREE: EASEUS Todo Backup Free Edition (2)
• VMware Backups – Troubleshoot the Consolidate Helper-0 backup error (1)
• 62.4% of SMEs do not use email archiving (0)
• DHCP backup and restore (3)
• My 4 golden backup rules – Part 2: Schedule restores and back up backups (1)

You can only buy CPS together with Backup Exec 11d, but CPS is an independent CDP tool that also works without Backup Exec. This means, you have to install both tools separately and deploy two different agents.

The Push Install CPS Components Wizard allows you deploy the CPS agent together with the Backup Exec agent for Windows servers. You can also use it to install the CPS Administration Console. This way you can manage CPS from every server where you installed its agent.

CPS uses Windows folders as backup destinations. So you don’t have to reserve a complete volume like in Microsoft’s DPM. However, you can only create one backup destination on a logical drive. It is interesting to note, however, that CPS doesn’t reserve space for a backup destination. Thus, you always have to keep an eye on the space available. Backup destinations can be accessed on all CPS systems in your network, i.e. you can configure a backup job on one server and use the backup destination of another CPS.

It is possible to use the same backup destination for multiple backup jobs. Backup jobs run according to a schedule, like in conventional backup tools, or continuously. The latter option is its default setting. The filter driver of the CPS agent captures the changed bytes whenever an application saves a file to disk. Only these changes will be copied to the backup destination after the first full backup.

Sysops restore data using the CPS Administration console. Users can restore their files with the so-called Backup Exec Retrieve web interface. Backup Exec Retrieve is optimized for Internet Explorer 6, but the manual says that other Web browsers work, too. I wonder if you get support if you use another browser.

Since CPS secures files continuously, you can always restore the latest version of a file. It is possible to restore older versions, however, you can’t restore a file to a state on an arbitrary point in time. More sophisticated CDP tools have this feature. CPS creates snapshots of the back-up data according to its configured schedule. The shortest interval between snapshots is an hour. Hence, you have the latest version of a certain file plus the versions of the hourly snapshots.

In the next post of this series I will explain how Symantec Backup 11d interacts with CPS.

• FREE: EASEUS Todo Backup Free Edition (2)
• VMware Backups – Troubleshoot the Consolidate Helper-0 backup error (1)
• 62.4% of SMEs do not use email archiving (0)
• DHCP backup and restore (3)
• My 4 golden backup rules – Part 2: Schedule restores and back up backups (1)

With “conventional backup tool”, I mean, software that scans disks searching for files with a changed archive bit. Depending on the backup method, i.e. normal, differential or incremental, it will reset the archive bit after the files have been secured.

In a CDP system, you can forget about the archive bit, you don’t have to worry about different backup methods and backup strategies like the famous grandfather-father-son strategy being replaced by new concepts.

When I first read about CDP systems, I was already convinced that this technology will sooner or later replace conventional backup systems. The fact that you always have an up-to-date copy of your data is already a killer feature. Moreover, you don’t have to worry anymore about backup windows or overloaded servers during the backup process. Another advantage is that setting up a backup system is much easier.

There is no alternative to tape-based backups when it comes to long term archiving. This is where the good old Backup Exec comes in. The question is, whether you need such a complex tool like Backup Exec to copy the data of your CDP system to tapes. Maybe it makes more sense to integrate tape support in a CDP tool like Microsoft’s DPM v2 .

I’ll test the Continuous Protection Sever of Backup Exec 11d these days and report about it here. I am seriously considering giving up Backup Exec and moving to Microsoft’s Backup solution. So I am quite curious to know if Symantec’s CDP solution is still better than Microsoft’s DPM.

• FREE: EASEUS Todo Backup Free Edition (2)
• VMware Backups – Troubleshoot the Consolidate Helper-0 backup error (1)
• 62.4% of SMEs do not use email archiving (0)
• DHCP backup and restore (3)
• My 4 golden backup rules – Part 2: Schedule restores and back up backups (1)

Like most CDP solutions, DPM 2006 is a disk-based backup tool. DPM v2, its successor, is still disk-based, but you can indeed backup data directly to tapes. I tried it with an old Dell SDLT drive. DPM v2 had no problem storing and retrieving data from it.

Disk-based backups are becoming more and more popular. However, for long-term storage, tapes are still the better solution. With DPM v2, you can easily combine both types of storage media. You simply tell DPM that you want to use disks for short-term backup and tapes for long-term storage when you create a Protection Group, i.e., a backup job.

You can separately configure the retention ranges and the backup synchronization frequency for both types. So, for example, you could set a retention time of five days for disk-based backups and a year for tape-based backups. DPM allows a minimum synchronization frequency of 15 minutes for disk-based backups. You can run tape backups daily, but with a five-day retention range for the disk backups, you could work with weekly tape backups.

What I like about this solution is that you only have to configure one backup job for each server. With conventional backup software, you usually have separate job definitions for disk and tape backups and you have separate jobs for daily, weekly, and monthly backups. So all in all, you have six backup jobs for each server. With DPM v2, there is just one, thereby making the setup of backup jobs not only less time consuming, but helpful in keeping a better overview of your backup jobs.

I also ran backups of an Exchange 2003 Server with DPM v2. The DPM agent recognized automatically that Exchange was installed on the server. You can select each Exchange storage group separately as the backup source. DPM v2 supports restores of singular mailboxes, but you can’t restore single items like individual e-mails. That means DPM v2 Beta 1 doesn’t support so-called brick-level backups.

I wasn’t able to restore a single mailbox to the Exchange Server. DPM always complained that the user was still connected to the mailbox, which wasn’t really the case. Okay, I understand this is just beta software. I’ll try this feature again when the next version is out.

Restoration of the complete database was no problem, though. DPM dismounts the Exchange storage group during the restore process. However, this only works for the latest backup. If you want to restore older backups, you have to restore the database files to a separate location and then mount them with Exchange.

Apart from the tape support and the aforementioned possibility to backup SQL Server and SharePoint, I didn’t find any other big changes when compared to DPM 2006 SP1. The user interface looks pretty much the same. I didn’t try any backups of SQL Server or SharePoint. I’ll probably do that when the final is available.

In the introduction, I said that DPM v2 Beta1 has a major shortcoming. Like DPM 2006, it doesn’t support backups of Windows system files. This, at least, is true for the Beta 1. Therefore, DPM v2 Beta 1 can’t be used for disaster recovery. However, a Microsoft employee told me that Beta 2 will be able to backup the Windows system state.

So I am looking forward to Beta 2 to see if this is really true. Beta 1 is also a bit unstable. I had to reinstall it once since the management console (MMC) wasn’t able to load the DPM user interface anymore. I’ll test DPM v2 more thoroughly as soon as a better version comes out.

• eDiscovery in Exchange – Part 4: Restoring a mailbox database with DPM 2010 (0)
• FREE: EASEUS Todo Backup Free Edition (2)
• VMware Backups – Troubleshoot the Consolidate Helper-0 backup error (1)
• 62.4% of SMEs do not use email archiving (0)
• DHCP backup and restore (3)

• Troubleshooting Exchange eDiscovery: Errors due to lack of Full Access permission (0)
• Troubleshoot Exchange eDiscovery: This mailbox exceeded the maximum number of corrupted items (0)
• Exchange ActiveSync Mailbox Policies and Exchange Remote Wipe (1)
• How to change the allowable message size in Exchange 2010 (0)
• eDiscovery in Exchange – Part 5: Export and search (0)

Support for 64-bit Protection Updated System Requirements Support for Clustered Servers Protection for SIS-enablsed Servers Microsoft Update Opt-in Change to Disk Allocation Formula Other Changes in SP1

• Troubleshooting Exchange eDiscovery: Errors due to lack of Full Access permission (0)
• Troubleshoot Exchange eDiscovery: This mailbox exceeded the maximum number of corrupted items (0)
• Exchange ActiveSync Mailbox Policies and Exchange Remote Wipe (1)
• How to change the allowable message size in Exchange 2010 (0)
• eDiscovery in Exchange – Part 5: Export and search (0)

We were about to buy Lucid8 Digivault as a CDP solution for Exchange and Continuous Protection Agent for Backup Exec 10d from Symantec. I like Symantec’s CDP solution more than DPM. However, Exchange support is a great plus now for DPM. I suppose that Symantec will follow Microsoft soon with a new version of Backup Exec offering similar features.

It seems that DPM Version 2 has another interesting new feature that Microsoft calls “Seamless Disk and Tape Integration”. With DPM 2006, you need third party software to back up data to tapes. I wonder what this feature is supposed to be. Unfortunately, the “marketing text” doesn’t give any hint about it.

I am probably going to have a closer look at the Beta 1 which is already available for download at Microsoft Connect.

• Troubleshooting Exchange eDiscovery: Errors due to lack of Full Access permission (0)
• Troubleshoot Exchange eDiscovery: This mailbox exceeded the maximum number of corrupted items (0)
• Exchange ActiveSync Mailbox Policies and Exchange Remote Wipe (1)
• How to change the allowable message size in Exchange 2010 (0)
• eDiscovery in Exchange – Part 5: Export and search (0)

I contacted them all, asking for a demo version. Some didn’t even reply, some were asking further questions. I told them that I am planning to write a review for the well-known German magazine Computerwoche. Usually, this speeds-up things tremendously. A review, even if it is critical, is the best advertisement they can get.

From my experience, it isn’t a good sign if a vendor is reluctant to offer a demo version. I don’t believe that they are afraid of pirated copies. There are reliable methods to prevent the use of the software after the trial period is over.

If there is no demo version available for download, it usually means that their product is difficult to handle. They let you fill out an online form to check how big your company is and where you are located. Then they will offer a presentation of the software by a company representative. Of course, everything will work perfectly then. However, when you are alone with the product things look different.

This is typical for software using new technologies like continuous data protection. I am still waiting. Maybe I will be able to test another CDP tool for Exchange. So far I can only recommend Lucid8 DigiVault. You can download a demo version without much hassle and the product made a good impression to me.

• Troubleshooting Exchange eDiscovery: Errors due to lack of Full Access permission (0)
• Troubleshoot Exchange eDiscovery: This mailbox exceeded the maximum number of corrupted items (0)
• Exchange ActiveSync Mailbox Policies and Exchange Remote Wipe (1)
• How to change the allowable message size in Exchange 2010 (0)
• eDiscovery in Exchange – Part 5: Export and search (0)

First of all, I have to correct a mistake I made in my previous post. I wrote that only XOsoft Enterprise Rewinder is unable to perform brick level backups. Now, I found out that DigiVault doesn’t support it, too. (I already corrected my former article.) I was misled by a Networkworld review about DigiVault. The author mentioned that end-users can restore mailboxes. However, DigiVault neither supports end-user recovery nor allows the recovery of single mailboxes.

Anyway, DigiVault is an interesting CDP solution. Installation was easy. Requesting a demo license using the built-in licensing function didn’t work though. I, then, requested a license file from the Lucid8 support by e-mail. Within a day, I got a 30-day demo license.

The manual is a bit short-winded for my taste. After reading almost half of it, I still was not able to perform a backup. So I just started playing with the software, consulting the manual only if I don’t understand a term. It didn’t take long until I figured out, how DigiVault works.

First, you have to attach a drive to the server hosting the so-called DigiStore agent, the centralized repository for DigiVault backups. A DigiStore agent can be on the same server as Exchange. In most cases, installing the DigiStore agent on another server is recommended, though. This way, the load on the Exchange server is reduced and you get more redundancy too. You can specify the space DigiVault reserves on the attached drive. The rest of the space can still be used by other applications.

The next step is to setup a backup policy. Basically, policies are backup job schedules for full and incremental backups. For the latter you have three options: “whenever data changes”, “when committed cycle exceeds”, and when “whenever committed log account exceeds”.

The first option is, what is supposed to be “real” continuous data protection. Unfortunately, this option didn’t work during my tests. I guess something was wrong with my configuration. The other two options worked fine. I was able to create incremental backups using one minute interval. You can adjust the time interval depending on your resources. For most environments, a 15 minute interval is probably the best setup.

Restoration of the Exchange stores worked without any problems. Before you can recover an Exchange server, you have to dismount the corresponding stores using the Exchange System Manager. DigiVault can mount them automatically after the complete restoration. To recover a complete Exchange store, it is enough to select one of the incremental backups. This is different compared to traditional incremental backups, where you have to restore a full backup with all its successive incremental backups.

Another difference is that you will get the exact state of the database it had at the time when the last incremental backup was running, i.e. not only data of the full backup and the items which were added to the database since the last full backup will be restored; DigiVault doesn’t restore items that were deleted during the time between the full backup and the incremental backup.

All in all, DigiVault is easy to use. Thus, I can recommend the CDP tool for smaller companies with only one Exchange server. However, DigiVault has some features which address bigger companies with several Exchange systems. For example, a DigiStore-enabled server can be used by multiple DigiVault agents as backup destination. You can even setup multiple DigiStore systems if one server doesn’t have enough storage capacity or network bandwidth. Everything can be managed centrally with one interface, the so-called Enterprise System Protector Console.

• Troubleshooting Exchange eDiscovery: Errors due to lack of Full Access permission (0)
• Troubleshoot Exchange eDiscovery: This mailbox exceeded the maximum number of corrupted items (0)
• Exchange ActiveSync Mailbox Policies and Exchange Remote Wipe (1)
• How to change the allowable message size in Exchange 2010 (0)
• eDiscovery in Exchange – Part 5: Export and search (0)

Its difference to traditional Exchange backup is that you don’t have to schedule backup jobs. Furthermore, to restore the Exchange database, you don’t select the data of a certain backup job but instead restore it to its original state at a certain point in time. This way, the so called Recovery Point Objective (RPO) can be reduced from a day to almost zero.

I didn’t test the solutions below; some of them were new to me. They all purport on their web sites to support continuous data protection. Since the concept is relatively new, I am not sure if they all mean the same with “CDP”.

As far as I can understand, all except XOsoft Enterprise Rewinder and Lucid8 DigiVault support brick-level restores. “Brick level” means that you can restore single mailboxes and messages.

• Atempo LiveServe for Microsoft Exchange
• FalconStor Message Recovery for Microsoft Exchange
• Lucid Digivault
• Mimosa Nearpoint for Microsoft Exchange Server
• Sonasoft SonaSafe^TM for Exchange Server
• Timespring TimeData Continuous Data Protection for Exchange
• XOsoft’s Enterprise Rewinder Exchange Data Protection Solution

Please, let me know if you’ve heard of other CDP solutions for Exchange. I’d like to add them to my list.. If you have any experience with one of the tools, your information is welcome here.

I am thinking of writing a review for a German magazine about one or two of the tools listed and I will post about some of my findings here. So stay tuned if you want to learn more about this topic.

• Troubleshooting Exchange eDiscovery: Errors due to lack of Full Access permission (0)
• Troubleshoot Exchange eDiscovery: This mailbox exceeded the maximum number of corrupted items (0)
• Exchange ActiveSync Mailbox Policies and Exchange Remote Wipe (1)
• How to change the allowable message size in Exchange 2010 (0)
• eDiscovery in Exchange – Part 5: Export and search (0)