[RESOLVED] Exchange aware backup
Hi guys,
Hope you're doing OK. I'm doing a POC for a customer for his exchange 2003 SP2 VM.
Doing a backup trough VMProtect8 of only this VM, opting the Exchange aware backup. Backup size is about 1.5TB and first backup took for ages, but that is to be expected. Next backups were alot faster.
No I receive warnings that prevent me from restoring mails, database, mailbox,...
See the log in attachment.
First backup was done out of the box, the next backup I manually knstalled the small exchange agent in the VM. Both result in the same warnings.
Can you please assist or point me in the right direction?
PS: The POC is done with an NFR key, so no normal support possible, but when working, the solution will be purchased.
Thanks,
Vincent
Issue resolved here.
Attachment | Size |
---|---|
log.zip | 2.41 KB |

- Log in to post comments

Hi Vasily,
Thanks for the reply.
The VM itself has all drives on the iSCSI SAN trough a vmdk, so normal disks.
In attachment screenshots from AD with locations and DB locations from exchange. Hope this helps.
Thanks for the feedback,
Vincent
Attachment | Size |
---|---|
120752-105532.jpg | 98.73 KB |
120752-105535.jpg | 105.5 KB |
120752-105538.jpg | 103.24 KB |
120752-105541.jpg | 47.36 KB |
120752-105544.jpg | 44.87 KB |
120752-105547.jpg | 48.32 KB |
120752-105550.jpg | 45.31 KB |
120752-105553.jpg | 104.98 KB |
- Log in to post comments

Hi Vincent,
Thank you for the provided screen shots - they were really helpful. According to them there is an empty storage group ("Restore") which contains no databases and this is where the problem comes from. In 8128 build the empty storage groups are not properly skipped. From what I have checked this issue is already fixed in 9th version of Acronis vmProtect (in the code trunk) but this fix is not included into 8184 build (Update 1). The problem is quite a rare one and the solution here is to remove the empty storage group from Exchange configuration (it is safe to remove it since it doesn't contain any databases) or alternatively create some database under this storage group.
Thank you.
--
Best regards,
Vasily
Acronis vmProtect Program Manager
- Log in to post comments

Hi Vasily,
Makes sense. I created a store and running a backup right now. It seems backups takes alot longer in the first stage, so I guess the apliance is now actually copying the database or logs. Before it jumped after a few minutes to 14%, where now the process of transfering a file from the guest takes longer. Looks good.
One more question. Can you deploy multiple appliances in a DRS cluster to speed up transfer speeds of all VM's? Bottleneck of transfer speed is not having multipath for the appliance and not the SAN (backup target). If I divide the VM's over multiple appliances, is this possible or not to be advised?
Thanks,
Vincent
- Log in to post comments

Hi Vincent,
Usually the bottleneck is the reading speed from the virtual disks especially when NBD mode is used (network mode) instead of Hot-add or direct SAN access ones. In your case I believe you are using vSphere Essentials or Standard and therefore the read speed on 8128 build is slow since there is NBD mode used. In 8184 build for these vSphere licenses there can be Hot-add method used (see details here http://forum.acronis.com/forum/38433 ), so I'd recommended first of all continue with this new build. The hot-add can be used if Appliance is deployed to the host which has access to the datastore (local or shared one) where the backed up VM resides. Note that you can run up to 5 tasks on vmProtect virtual appliance (VA) simultaneously and this will also increase the speed. Or you can deploy several appliances and distribute the tasks between them - this will also increase the speed. Hope this helps!
Thank you.
--
Best regards,
Vasily
Acronis vmProtect Program Manager
- Log in to post comments

Hi Vasily,
Just an update and yet another question.
Backup ran succesfull. When trying to do a mail recovery, it starts, creates new VM with NFS datastore, starts-up succesfull.
But on the VMProtect webpage, it hangs a long time (2 hours) on 95%. After that, it shows the items, but with loading and an internet explorer warning that a script is hanging? See attached.
Is this normal behaviour and/or has this something to do with the web browser?
Thanks,
Vincent
Attachment | Size |
---|---|
120835-105562.jpg | 85.14 KB |
- Log in to post comments

Hi Vincent,
The long browsing time may be caused by the fact that transaction logs are applied to the database in the temporary VM (2 hours is really not normal, however it depends on the amount of mailboxes to show up). This problem is fixed in 8184 build. Are you using this build already for browsing the e-mails?
The script error may be related to the amount of data which is shown in the vmProtect web console UI - the browser starts to eat too much memory (if there are for example a lot of mailboxes inside). I'd recommended using any other browser instead of IE (Firefox, Google Chrome, etc.) which can handle large amounts of data more consistently.
Thank you.
--
Best regards,
Vasily
Acronis vmProtect Program Manager
- Log in to post comments

Hi Vasiliy,
Will try to do 2 things:
Opera and doing a new full backup.
I'm using build 8128 and when doing update it says it's the latest build.
Regards,
Vincent
- Log in to post comments

Hi Vincent,
There is no need to create a new full backup - it's more a matter of recovery workflow, so 8184 build will work with the existing archive too. The checking for new build is not yet working since we've yet to upload the description file on web which contains new build reference (pending to be uploaded soon), however the build itself is already available for download from http://www.acronis.com/support/updates/# . I'd strongly recommended using this new build for checking the recovery.
Thank you.
--
Best regards,
Vasily
Acronis vmProtect Program Manager
- Log in to post comments

Hi Vasily,
I can confirm all tests have been succesfull.
After struggling sometime to get the VMWare tools registered succesfull, all backup/restore/validating of exchange related items were done as it should and as expected.
Thanks for the help with above and the new build.
Regards,
Vincent
- Log in to post comments