CyberSecure™ Microsoft Exchange® Offsite Backup Tutorial

Please follow the instructions below to backup a Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 / 2003 & 2007 using the CyberSecure Advanced client software.

Prerequisites

1. CyberSecure Online Backup Advanced
2. Exchange Server 2000 SP3 or greater, or Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2007
3. Enough space to hold your Exchange information store on a local drive
4. Ensure that Microsoft Exchange server circular logging is DISABLED.

   Circular logging allows Exchange Server to overwrite transaction logs after the data that the log files contain has been committed to the database.

   Please refer to this Microsoft KB article for instructions on how to turn off circular logging.

5. Ensure that no other backup software interferes with the pruning of transaction logs.

   The CyberSecure client software by default relies on the correct sequence of the transaction log databases and will automatically prune the logs after a successful backup. If you are running backup software in conjunction with CyberSecure, you may experience problems should the other software alter the exchange transaction logs or database.

Components of a Microsoft® Exchange Backup

Exchange server stores its data in Active Directory as well as in its databases. To fully backup an Exchange server, you need to backup the following components:

1. Windows system state

   The Windows system state contains the informtion about your Windows system, including Active Directory. Since Exchange stores some of its configuration (eg. email account and mailbox properties) inside active directory, it's important that the system state is also backed up.

   Active directory is stored inside a Windows server running as a Windows domain controller. If your Exchange server is a domain controller (eg. Microsoft Small Business Server), you can simply backup the system state of your exchange server. If you are running Exchange on a separate server to your domain controller, you will need to install CyberSecure Advanced on the additional server.

2. Microsoft information store

   Exchange server stores all emails and documents inside its databases which are grouped together as storage groups inside a Microsoft information store. This is not to be backed up using a file-backup, but rather through the native MS-Exchange backup type within CyberSecure Advanced.

3. Microsoft site replication service

   The Microsoft site replication service is automatically installed when the exchange server site replication feature is enabled.

   Microsoft site replication stores its runtime and configuration information inside its own database. If you are running Exchange with SRS, ensure that the backup includes the SRS database.

4. Microsoft key management service (exchange 2000 only)

   Similarly, if you have setup your Exchange server with key management services enabled, please make sure that the key management database is backed up as well.

Process of the CyberSecure Advanced exchange backup

1. Database Backup (Full Exchange Backup)

   IMPORTANT: An exchange database backup MUST be run before any transaction log backups.

   1. Windows system state will be backed up to a temporary directory specified in the backup set.
   2. All exchange databases selected are backed up to a temporary directory specified in the backup set.
2. Transaction Log Backup
   1. New transaction log extents generated since the last backup will be copied to the temporary directory.
3. Remove transaction log extents backed up from the Exchange server.
4. Run all post-commands of this backup set.
5. Upload all backup files from the temporary directory to CyberSecure's servers.
6. Remove temporary files from the temporary directory.

Setting up the Exchange offsite backup

1. Open CyberSecure Online Backup Advanced
2. Create a new exchange backup set (Backup Set -> New MS-Exchange Backup Set)
   
3. Choose your Exchange database information stores to backup. This screen also allows you to backup system state data.

   IMPORTANT: If your exchange server also serves as a domain controller, be sure to backup the system state, otherwise you must setup a separate system state backup on the domain controller.

   
4. The next screen allows you to set a schedule for automatic exchange backup.

   IMPORTANT: The suggested method of backing up exchange is to have a weekly full database backup (eg. Fridays) and transaction log backups on weekdays (eg. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday).

   If you are not familiar with Exchange backup practices, please leave the schedule at these default settings.

   

5. (Optional) If required, you can adjust the encryption settings to specify a different password, or change the encryption cipher operation mode.

   If you are unsure exactly what these settings do, please leave them at the defaults.

   
6. Your Microsoft Exchange backup set creation is complete!

   You are now ready to perform the first full backup, either via seeding the data onto removable media, or online to CyberSecure's storage servers.

   

   Ensure that the initial backup run is a database backup and not a transaction log backup, since transaction log backups require a previous database backup to function correctly.

Common questions & solutions

• Error: "CExBackup::backupService:HrESEBackupSetup: Error Number 0xc800020e: An incremental backup cannot be performed when circular logging is enabled."

  This error is due to circular logging being enabled. Please disable circular logging on your Exchange server, as per this Microsoft knowledge base article.

  IMPORTANT: It is highly recommended to become familiar with how Exchange transaction logs work.

• Error: "CExBackup::backupService:HrESEBackupSetup: Error Number 0xc8000230: The database missed a previous full backup before the incremental backup"

  This is caused by a previous full backup not being in sync with the transaction logs. Running 2x successful Exchange database backups through the CyberSecure ADVANCED agent should correct the problem.

• Error: "Expect log sequence 'a758' but found 'XXXX\Microsoft Information Store\First Storage Group\E000000A7BA.log'
  No *.edb found for database 'XXXX\Microsoft Information Store\First Storage Group\Mailbox Database'
  Errors found while validating your backup files. Please run a full backup to correct the problem."

  Please run a full backup to correct this problem.

  IMPORTANT: This error is due to the Exchange transaction logs being out of sequence. The most likely cause of this error is that some other backup software has pruned/modified the logs. CyberSecure requires that the Exchange transactions logs are not touched by other software. If additional backup software is being used, it must be set to perform a COPY backup, so that the Exchange transaction logs are not altered.

• Error: "The last backup jobs of *.stm (none) and *.edb (YYYY-MM-DD-hh-mm-ss) don't match for database 'SERVER\Microsoft Information Store\First Storage Group\Mailbox Store'"

  For an MS Exchange server backup, *.stm and *.edb file are backed up in pair. If the error message above is received, it implies that during a previous backup, there was a problem with either the *.stm or *.edb file.

  To resolve the issue, please perform a Full MS Exchange server backup manually via the CyberSecure Advanced agent.