Microsoft Exchange Server Data Protection
In 2009 with Release 4.2, Unitrends re-architected our fundamental approach to protecting Exchange. We also started offering support for Exchange 2010 along with 2007 and 2003.
Over the next few blog posts, I’m going to present an overview of the Exchange data protection architecture provided by Microsoft and then explore the ways that Unitrends offers the best Exchange protection in the industry. I’m basing my postings on one of my whitepapers (Protecting Windows: Microsoft Exchange Server Data Protection), which you can download for free. Today, we’ll kick off my new series by focusing on how Microsoft Exchange has customarily been protected.
Microsoft Exchange Data Protection Architecture
Exchange has traditionally been protected using the “streaming backup” method that was encoded in Windows Server 2003 “ntbackup.” With Windows Server 2008, Microsoft moved away from the traditional online streaming backup to VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Service). VSS-based Exchange backups (also called “snapshots”) are available for both Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003 for Exchange Server 2010, 2007, and 2003.
Exchange has an associated VSS writer. When the Exchange VSS writer is asserted, it creates a point-in-time image (snapshot) of the appropriate data. This point-in-time image is called a “Shadow Copy.” There are two basic types of Shadow Copies:
- Clone (Full Copy or Split Mirror):
- Copy on Write (Differential Copy)
The VSS infrastructure for Exchange consists of the following components:
- Writer: A writer provides a consistent point-in-time image by quiescing Exchange Server when it is asserted.
- Provider: A provider is the interface to the point-in-time image created by the VSS writer.
- Requestor: This is the software that invokes VSS and manages the shadow copy. Unitrends has created the requestor for Exchange 2010, 2007, and 2003.
In the upcoming post, I’m going to discuss the high-level attributes of the requestor’s implementation within the Unitrends’ appliance architecture.
