Exch 2003 - logs inconsistent - VSS of overnight VM backup clearing logs down too
Hi, hope someone can help.
Our Exchange 2003 server is a Hyper-V VM. From 7am to 7pm we backup the Exchange Store every 3 hours using Acronis 11.5 (to allow granular email restores, a full server restore is too cumbersome for individual emails) via transaction logs, and then a full weekly backup each Friday as we have limited space.
However the entire machine is also being backed-up by BackupChain overnight as a VHD via the host.
Acronis will be fine during the day, but the next morning the backups fail due to inconsistent log files.
Circular logging is disabled (set to 90 days retention instead) but when BackupChain takes its 11pm VSS snapshot - the Exchange server thinks that's enough of a backup and clears down the transaction logs.
The next day when Acronis tries to start backing up, it somehow sees the transaction logs have changed and fails.
Does Acronis leave a marker or flag somewhere that tells it what trans log to expect, or does it just pull it from the MdbData folder each time?
After BackupChain clears the logs down, all I'm left with is a few E00xxxx logs, the E00.chk and a tmp.edb, so I don't see how Acronis is finding a gap!
Thanks
I asked BackupChain - they tell me:
"When BackupChain takes a backup, it's always a full backup and Exchange reacts to that by clearing its logs. It isn't something BackupChain does."
So does that mean Acronis does keep an internal marker/flag of what the last transaction log was - rather than reading the log files and taking the number from there?
What BackupChain does is setting full VSS type backup. Other backup applications, including Backup & Recovery and (like the first one googled) http://www.backupassist.com/blog/support/sbs-2008-exchange-log-truncati… have an option to use VSS copy backup. If it can't do it in other way, you have to workaround it in Backup&Recovery backup plans settings to schedule Full backup after logs are truncated.
Understood.
I guess my other option is to use Acronis for both Exchange Mailboxes and the Exchange VM.
If I take a full VM VSS backup with Acronis at say 10pm, would the Acronis Exchange backup be smart enough to realise the logs have changed? Or would I need to deselect the VSS for the VM backup and risk losing data from incomplete transactions.
Acronis disk backup by default doesn't truncate Exchange logs, even if VSS is turned on, so the problem should not appear, and Exchange logs will be truncated only when Exchange full backup is executed.
Okay, thanks for your help Fedor - I'll see how we get on