Introducing Arcserve Backup Agents and Options › Using Agents › Agent for Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service › Application-Specific Guidelines › Microsoft Exchange Writer › General Guidelines

General Guidelines

The following are general guidelines for backup and restore operations involving Microsoft Exchange databases:

• Microsoft Exchange databases backed up using VSS must be restored using VSS and the Microsoft Exchange Writer.
• All storage groups must be on line before a backup job starts.
• All the databases in the same storage group must be dismounted before a restore job starts, even if you are restoring only one database in the storage group, to allow Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 to access all of the log files and bring the databases back on line. After the data has been restored, the databases can be mounted and the storage group can be brought back on line.
• Arcserve Backup works with VSS to restore only the backed up data. To completely recover the databases to a consistent state, you must perform Exchange-specific procedures to recover the logs.