Backing Up Microsoft Exchange Server Data

Table Of Contents

5.2 What data items can be backed up and what backup

types are used?

While creating a backup plan, you can select either the Microsoft Exchange Information Store or the

Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes data type.

Microsoft Exchange Information store

When you select this data type, the software will perform a database backup.

You can select the following items to back up:

 The entire information store.

 Individual databases (for Exchange 2010 or later).

 Individual storage groups (for Exchange 2003/2007).

The database backups are the basis for disaster recovery scenarios when it is necessary to recover

lost or corrupted databases, storage groups, or entire information store. Granular recovery from

database backups allows for restoring mailboxes, public folders, e-mails, contacts, calendar events,

journal entries, notes, and more (p. 31).

Why some databases are not backed up

The dismounted databases are skipped during backup. The backup task gets the "Succeeded with

warning" result, if the task backed up at least one database but skipped others because they were

dismounted. The backup task gets the "Failed" result, if the task was completed but skipped all of the

databases because they were all dismounted.

During database backups, Agent for Exchange automatically performs consistency check of database

files. It verifies the page-level integrity of the databases being backed up and validates the

checksums of all database pages and log files. Databases with a checksum mismatch or file header

damage are skipped during the backup.