Exchange Server and Archive Solution -1


Exchange Server; such a popular messaging system that there are many other software companies developing solutions which are not inbuilt in Exchange Server.

I had installed Mimosa NearPoint Server for Microsoft Exchange Server and following are the features.

You will need MS SQL server 2000 and above along with Mimosa NearPoint Server.

Archived Messages can be retrieved by the clients thru outlook. Attachment are striped and stored separately on the NearPoint Server thus reducing the size of EDB file on the exchange server.

Single Instance Storage organization wide

I have got some extracts from the NearPoint documentations on basic concepts

Of course there is more to it than what I have put here, but an average Exchange Admin will not have any issues understanding and using NearPoint Server.

 The Mimosa NearPoint architecture is designed to protect multiple Exchange servers using a single NearPoint server. Mimosa developed Continuous Application Shadowing, a process that copies Exchange databases and transaction logs to the NearPoint server. Continuous Application Shadowing is a disk-based technique that uses the standard Exchange Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) Backup API and leverages low-cost disk, to deliver near continuous data protection for Exchange. It uses low-cost disk, it is affordable to store a complete copy of the Exchange database on NearPoint disk. Having a complete copy of the Exchange database on NearPoint disk has many advantages for backup and recovery and avoids the hassle of dealing with tape. By using disk as the backup target, Continuous Application Shadowing can perform backups more frequently and can restore a full Exchange database in less time. The Application Shadowing process involves the following stages:

Full Copy

Continuous Application Shadowing begins with a full copy of the Exchange databases using the Exchange ESE Backup API, referred to as a shadow copy. Mimosa chose ESE because the copy process can be performed online, assuring that all database records are kept consistent. Full copy can be run once or be repeated (e.g. weekly) depending on the environment. A full copy can be performed on-demand, for example, running a full copy after the consolidation of two or more Exchange servers. Each time a full copy runs, it replaces the Exchange database on the NearPoint server with the new copy. NearPoint maintains a current copy of each database from each storage group and/or Exchange Server, ready at any time for fast disk-based recovery. A simple “point-and-click” is all it takes to initiate a complete Exchange database restore from the NearPoint server and the restore process is performed in minutes versus the hours or days it takes to restore from tape.

Log Shipping

Following the full shadow copy, incremental shadows are performed using a process called log shipping. Log shipping keeps the full database copies on the NearPoint server up-to-date and relies on the Exchange Transaction Log Files to obtain the latest database records. There are two types of log shipping – Periodic Log Shipping and Dynamic Log Shipping. Periodic Log Shipping uses the ESE Incremental Backup API and copies Exchange transaction log files to the NearPoint server at a frequency specified by the Administrator (e.g. hourly). The Exchange Incremental Backup API checks all the database records in each log file for consistency, which is critical to make sure there is no data corruption. Each time that Periodic Log Shipping runs, it immediately applies all the transaction logs to the Exchange database copy maintained on the NearPoint server. In this manner, the full copy of the Exchange database on NearPoint always remains current, as of the last scheduled log shipping. This is a major improvement over traditional incremental tape backups that do not apply the incremental log files to the full database copy and only run once a day. Traditional backup applications keep accumulating the logs and if any one of the logs is corrupt, damaged, or missed the backups taken thereafter become useless and invalid.

Dynamic Log Shipping

Dynamic Log Shipping is a further optimization of Periodic Log Shipping and monitors the Exchange Server file system continuously for new transaction log files. As new transaction log files are created, they are copied immediately to the NearPoint server. If the Exchange database should fail, Administrators are assured of having the most current copy of the Exchange database up to the last log file shipped. Dynamic Log Shipping, when combined with Periodic Log Shipping and full shadow copy, provides near real time protection for the “Smart Message Extraction™”.

Indexed Object Repository

Mimosa NearPoint maintains a current copy of the full Exchange database ready at any time for full database restores. In this section, we will introduce a second copy of data that is stored in the Indexed Object Repository. The Indexed Object Repository contains all e-mail messages, attachments and other e-mail items such as contacts, calendars, tasks and journals. The Indexed Object Repository enables individual mailbox recovery and allows individual users (and auditors) to search and retrieve items using standard Outlook and Outlook Web Access (OWA) interfaces. The Indexed Object Repository provides a common repository for data management applications such as recovery, archiving, advanced search, monitoring, and disaster recovery.

Smart Message Extraction

The Indexed Object Repository is created via a process that runs on the Mimosa NearPoint server called Smart Message Extraction. Smart Message Extraction runs nearly continuously and transforms the full copy of the Exchange database into its individual message components. The Smart Extraction Process replaces the brick-level backup methods that other backup products require for mailbox and message level recovery. Unlike these MAPI-based processes; it runs entirely on the NearPoint server and does not impact the performance of the Exchange Server. Each time new transaction log files are received and applied via periodic log shipping; Smart Extraction extracts new e-mail items to store in the Indexed Object Repository. This process keeps the Indexed Object Repository in sync with the Exchange database copy.

All of the e-mail items that are processed by Smart Message Extraction are indexed and classified according to their time and location. By indexing the e-mail items, full text searches can be performed more quickly across the entire message header, body, and attachment. This improves the standard search capability of Exchange to include the content of an attachment. Each e-mail item is logged according to the time it was created and the mailbox and folder of origin. This information enables “point-in-time” recovery of individual mailboxes and messages and allows viewing of an individual’s mailbox at an earlier point-in-time to support forensics. All this rich Metadata information is stored in a relational database using MSDE or optionally Microsoft SQL Server and is accessible from the standard Outlook and OWA interfaces.

Single Instancing and Compression

Smart Message Extraction uses the MD5 hashing algorithm to calculate a digital signature for each Exchange item in the Indexed Object Repository. The digital signature is used to determine if the same e-mail message or attachment has already been stored in the Indexed Object Repository. This process is commonly referred to as single instancing and reduces the amount of space required by the Indexed Object Repository by eliminating duplicate records. The single instancing on NearPoint is global across all Exchange servers and databases and optimizes the single instancing that Exchange performs within an individual Exchange Mailbox Store. The digital signature is part of the metadata information stored in the relational database and is also used to verify the integrity of records.

One Pass Protection

Continuous Application Shadowing is fundamentally different from other traditional tape-based products because it is the only NearPoint backup process that “touches” the Exchange Server (Accesses the production Exchange Server services). Mimosa calls this One Pass Protection. Unlike traditional tape backup products that touch the Exchange Server multiple times for full database and individual mailbox level backups, NearPoint only requires a single pass of Exchange to support full database, mailbox, and message level recovery. Using traditional tape backup products, a daily full backup is typically performed or another option is a weekly full backup with daily incremental backups. These full and incremental backups constitute one pass of Exchange and are used for full database restores. To restore individual mailboxes or messages, a second pass of the Exchange Server using MAPI is necessary. Due to the resource constraints on the Exchange Server and the amount of time it takes to complete mailbox level backups, these should be avoided at all cost. Mimosa developed NearPoint to support mailbox and message level restores without requiring a second backup pass of Exchange. Mimosa NearPoint requires only a single pass of the Exchange database with a full shadow copy. We will discuss in the next section how Mimosa NearPoint extracts mailbox and message level records from the full Exchange database copy on NearPoint to enable mailbox and message level recovery. Note: Continuous Application Shadowing and Smart Message Extraction are application intelligent processes that are a fundamental improvement over traditional tape backup products. Because they operate with a very detailed understanding of the Exchange database structure, Mimosa NearPoint is able to address a wide range of Exchange failures and errors, not just database crash recovery. The Exchange ESE Backup API, that Application Shadowing uses, provides another level of application intelligence as it checks all Exchange database records for consistency. Each time Application Shadowing and log shipping runs, the log files are verified to be free of corruption. This prevents any data corruption from ever reaching the full Exchange database copy on the NearPoint server. Other backup methods rely on block-level or file-level data shipping methods and cannot detect corruption in the data they are copying. They will transfer any corruption in the Exchange database to the backup database and render it useless.

Let me know if you have any questions.