You can create a backup from an active copy or from any passive copy in an Exchange Server Database Availability Group (DAG).
When you use Data Protection for Exchange with DAGs, consider the following guidelines.
- Use a DAG member to store DAG database backups.
- Ensure that the same VSS policy applies to all DAG members.
- Ensure that the first backup is a FULL backup when you move backups to DAG member backups.
- Ensure that previous backups are manually deleted after you move backups to DAG member backups, assuming that those backups are no longer needed.
- Ensure that backups to LOCAL are restored only to and expired from the Exchange server on which the backup is created.
- Ensure that database restore operations run only on the active database.
The high availability feature of DAG backups improves Exchange Server data backups and
data recovery. When you back up data in a DAG environment, follow these guidelines:
- To decrease the load on the production Exchange server, specify that the backups are created from a passive database copy. If no passive copy is available, the backup is created from the active copy of the database. To specify that backups are created from a passive database copy, add /PREFERDAGPASSIVE to a backup command.
- Use these command-line backup options to exclude certain databases from backup processing: /EXCLUDEDAGPASSIVE, /EXCLUDEDAGACTIVE, or /EXCLUDENONDAGDBS.
If at least one active and one passive copy exists in a DAG
environment, you can bypass integrity checking of the database and log files by
using the /SKIPINTEGRITYCHECK options with the
backup command. Attention: If you bypass integrity checking, the backup that is stored on Tivoli Storage Manager server might not be valid, or data loss can occur.
- To maximize availability, schedule multiple servers to back up copies of each database. Use the /MINIMUMBACKUPINTERVAL option to ensure that only one copy is backed up for each backup cycle.