RE: Exchange on integrated x Series

> -----Original Message-----
> From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Walden 
> H. Leverich
> Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 11:14 AM
> To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
> Subject: RE: Exchange on integrated x Series
> 
> OK, this is getting _way_ off topic of midrange stuff, so I'll try and
> squeak in an answer before David tells us all to move to pc tech.
> 
> It's not that you can't backup/restore at the mailbox (or even
> folder/mail item level) you can. There are several brick-level backup
> programs out there, and they do work. But here's the problem...
> 
> Exchange is a single-instance storage engine. If I send a 1 Meg excel
> sheet to 100 people in my company there is _one_ copy of the file and
> message on the server, and 100 entries in 100 mailboxes 
> pointing to that
> one message. 100 users, 1 meg message, but I only need 1 meg of server
> storage. Nice deal. 

I'd agree, that's a good feature.

> 
> If I start doing brick-level backups and restores I loose that
> single-instance storage advantage. When I backup I need to 
> store that 1
> meg excel sheet in each of those mailboxes on tape (disk, cd, 
> whatever)
> so while that message took 1 meg on the server it takes 100 
> meg on tape.

Seems like a rather simple approach to backup. No real reason for it to
work that way.

While not a trivial problem, it has certainly been solved before.
Consider backups of a file system that supports symbolic links.   

> Likewise, if I ever restore it, exchange has no way of linking that
> restored message to the original message (if it even still 
> exists) so it
> creates a new message. Restore 100 mailboxes now that message 
> takes 100
> meg, not 1.

Again a simple approach.

> 
> From an end-user point of view, bricked-backups work. No argument. IT
> backs up my mailbox, I mess it up, I call IT and they restore 
> it, I get
> it back, no data loss, no problem.
> 
> The problem is one of storage utilization. Take that 1 meg 
> message that
> became 100 meg on tape, multiply it by thousands of messages by
> thousands of users and you begin to see the problem.

I see problem caused by Microsoft's simple approach to Backup/Recovery.
To be honest, it doesn't surprise me.  I've never been impressed by the
recoverability of any MS product.


Charles