Paragon Exchange Protection - Questions for Early Adopters!

[Paragon_MA]

Early Adopter Program members evaluating Paragon Exchange Protection, please review and answer the following questions, after you've had an opportunity to use the software.

1. Have you used any utilities for protecting MS Exchange before?

2. Was it easy for you to install Paragon Exchange Protection (PEP)?
a. Yes
b. No (Please describe difficulties you’ve faced)

3. Please describe configuration of MS Exchange Server you'd like to protect with PEP:
- Windows OS version
- MS Exchange version
- The number and location of Storage Groups
- Amount of data in each Storage Group

4. What is your main goal in using Paragon Exchange Protection (PEP)?
a. Back up an entire MS Exchange Server
b. Back up individual Storage Groups

5. How did you launch the backup job?
a. Manually, through the command line
b. With the help of Windows Task Scheduler

6. What type of storage do you use to store backups of MS Exchange in?
a.Common data partition on a local HDD
b.External storage (USB, FireWire, eSATA)
c.Shared folder on a file server
d.SAN/NAS
e.Other

7. Did you use the PEP Log Shipping mode for NCDP (Near Continuous Data Protection)?
a. Yes
b. No (Please explain why)
c. I didn't notice it

8. Please describe a backup strategy you’ve managed to implement with PEP:
- Task scheduling for full and incremental backups;
- Usage of the Log Shipping mode;
- Usage of the Retention policy;
- Usage of the Single Instance Object Storage (SIOS) mode.

9. Did you find the Single Instance Object Storage option useful?
a. Yes
b. No (Please explain why)
c. I didn't notice it.

10. Did you manage to back up MS Exchange with PEP?
a. Yes.
b. No (If you've faced any problem while using our product, please provide us operation log file (you can find it in "C:\Windows\Logs\Paragon\Exchange Protection") plus Windows application log, (please describe your actions just before the glitch in every single detail). We'll do our best to help you out as soon as possible).

11. Did you manage to restore MS Exchange with PEP?
a. Yes.
b. No (If you've faced any problem while using our product, please provide us operation log file (you can find it in "C:\Windows\Logs\Paragon\Exchange Protection") and Windows application log, (please describe your actions just before the glitch in every single detail). We'll do our best to help you out as soon as possible).

12. What type of restore is more important for you?
a. Restore of entire MS Exchange or individual Storage Group to the original location by using the latest restore point;
b. Restore of entire MS Exchange or individual Storage Group to the original location by using a particular restore point;
c. Restore of individual Storage Group to some alternative location or as Recovery Storage Group.

13. Does PEP’s backup/restore performance satisfy your needs?
a. Yes
b. No (Please provide approximate time required for backup/restore, archive location, size of EDB and logs).

14. Did you find the restore procedure easy and intuitive?
a. Yes
b. No (Please describe a stage that you find most difficult for you. Would you suggest any improvements to it?)

15. Do you think Paragon Exchange Protection needs more features?
a. Yes (Please describe features you want to have in the next version)
b. No

16. Did you find any redundant features?
a. Yes (Please describe features you don’t need in PEP)
b. No

17. Do you think functionality of Paragon Exchange Protection needs to be extended?
a. Yes (What else would you like our solution to do?)
b. No. It is great.

Manual: http://www.paragon-software.com/docs/PEP_eng100810m.pdf

Reviewer's guide: http://www.paragon-software.com/docs/PEP_RG_eng271010.pdf

Web site: http://www.paragon-software.com/technologies/components/exchange-protection/

[gest_op]

Hi,
here's my first answers to the survey

1. Yes, tried various utilities: Microsoft DPM, CA Arcserve, Acronis
2. Yes, very easy
3. Three servers, Windows 2003 R2 SP2 x64, Exchange 2007 SP2, about 40 storage groups per server with a total amount of about 5 Tb of data
4. Backup Individual Storage Groups
5. Both manual and scheduled
6. iSCSI NAS
7. No, we don't need this level of protection
8. Not tested yet
9. Yes
10. Not on CCR configuration, more about this below
11. Not tested yet
12. Restore of individual Storage Group to some alternative location or as Recovery Storage Group.
13. Not tested yed
14. Yes
15. Yes, granular mailbox recovery first of all
16. No
17. Maybe, with granular backup/restore options

I managed to make a backup of a test Exchange environment consisting of a single server.
However when I tried to backup from a CCR configuration, iI obtained the following errors in the log:

2011-02-02 18:01:30.701 BACKUP001 Performing BACKUP with the following parameters:
2011-02-02 18:01:30.701 BACKUP001 Backup type: FULL
2011-02-02 18:01:30.701 BACKUP001 Use replicas: NO
2011-02-02 18:01:30.701 BACKUP001 Block SIOS: YES
2011-02-02 18:01:30.701 BACKUP001 Archive path: X:\Backups
2011-02-02 18:01:30.701 BACKUP001 Verbose output: YES
2011-02-02 18:01:30.701 BACKUP001 Purge data older than: 30 day(s)
2011-02-02 18:01:30.701 BACKUP001 Backing up all Exchange data stores
2011-02-02 18:01:30.717 BACKUP001 Data backup operation has started.
2011-02-02 18:01:30.732 BACKUP001 Enter ExchangeBackup(). bs.TargetDir = X:\Backups
2011-02-02 18:01:30.764 BACKUP001 Enter db_DeleteIncompleteBackups(). Archive = "X:\Backups"
2011-02-02 18:01:30.764 BACKUP001 Leave db_DeleteIncompleteBackups(). Archive = "X:\Backups". File CATALOG.DB doesn't exist
2011-02-02 18:01:31.545 BACKUP001 Enter SelectStorageGroupsForBackup(). bs.TargetDir = X:\Backups
2011-02-02 18:01:33.123 BACKUP001 Info: AddDriveToVolumetList(). Drive "M:\" is added to volume list
2011-02-02 18:01:33.123 BACKUP001 Info: AddDriveToVolumetList(). Drive "Q:\" is added to volume list
2011-02-02 18:01:33.139 BACKUP001 Info: AddDriveToVolumetList(). Drive "O:\" is added to volume list
2011-02-02 18:01:33.139 BACKUP001 Info: AddDriveToVolumetList(). Drive "N:\" is added to volume list
2011-02-02 18:01:33.139 BACKUP001 Leave SelectStorageGroupsForBackup(). bs.TargetDir = X:\Backups
2011-02-02 18:01:42.357 BACKUP001 Info ExchangeBackup(). DoSnapshotSet() is done. bs.TargetDir = X:\Backups
2011-02-02 18:01:42.357 BACKUP001 Enter TransferFilesToRepository(). bs.TargetDir = X:\Backups
2011-02-02 18:01:42.357 BACKUP001 Enter InitializeBackupParams()
2011-02-02 18:01:42.514 BACKUP001 Error in GetExchangeServerInfo(): Get-ExchangeServer -Identity "<NODE1_NAME>" has failed.
Error: The operation could not be performed because object '<NODE1_NAME>' could not be found on domain controller '<DC>'.
2011-02-02 18:01:42.529 BACKUP001 Data backup operation has failed.

From my understanding the last command attempted is on the single node name and not on the clustered mailbox server name, so it fails.
How can I specify the server name to use? Didn't find any option about this.

Thanks,
Enrico

[rickw101]

Hi

Before i can answer the survey i need a successful backup.

i cannot get the backup command to work. i get:

Data backup operation has started
Data transfer has started for "Mailbox Database 1"
Error: Backup operation has failed for "Mailbox Database 1"
Data backup operation has failed

this entire process takes +-15seconds. is there any way for me to troubleshoot this error and try to get a sucessful backup?

thanks

Rick

[rickw101]

Hi

No worries. Solved it. i had a 3rd party backup program installed and PEP was trying to use its VSS Writer. uninstalled the app, restarted Exchange and now its working. Cheers. Rick

[rickw101]

1 yes, just NT Backup Server 2003
2 a
3 Windows Server 2008, Exchange 2010 SP2, 1 storage group, 20GB data
4 b
5 a
6 a
7 c
8 i do a full backup every 2nd day
9 c
10 a
11 b not yey thank goodness
12 a
13 a
14 not applicable
15 a a GUI would be nice, recovery of individual mailboxes
16 b
17 a as question 15

so far all ive had to do is run the backup command every 2nd day. if problems occur i'll sure to post em. thanks. Rick