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I have 3 mail servers.

  • 1st mail-server for the CAS.
  • 2nd mail-server for the Hub-Transport.
  • 3rd mail-server for the DR/DAG.

I am backing up my 1st and 2nd server with CA ARCServ 16.5 with the following conditions:

  • Daily Incremental.
  • Weekly Full.
  • Weekly Verify.

When the backup job is running, I check everytime that the 'BackupInProgress' field is on True and it is.

Now the issue we are having is when I use the following command:

Get-Mailboxdatabase -status | Fl *backup*

The LastFullBackup, LastIncrementalBackup, LastDifferentialBackup are empty\blank

BackupInProgress               : False
SnapshotLastFullBackup         :
SnapshotLastIncrementalBackup  :
SnapshotLastDifferentialBackup :
SnapshotLastCopyBackup         : True
LastFullBackup                 :
LastIncrementalBackup          :
LastDifferentialBackup         :
LastCopyBackup                 : 19/08/2013 21:01:19
RetainDeletedItemsUntilBackup  : False

How come thode field are not being updated once the backup job is done?

Thanks for the help

Aviv Malka
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2 Answers2

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Sounds like your backup software isn't doing an Exchange-aware backup. You may need to install or configure a specific agent/component of the software to do an Exchange-specific backup. Only then would Exchange itself know that it's been backed up -- if you are just doing a basic disk-based backup, you are not ensured that the Exchange databases can be restored to an application-consistent state.

Look into Exchange-specific features for your backup solution -- if they aren't immediately obvious, then you may need to install an additional component on the Exchange server so that the software knows that the server is running Exchange.

jbsmith
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  • but when I type the following command: Get-Mailboxdatabase -status | Fl *backup* - while the backup job is running I see: BackupInProgress : True - So the Exchange server do recognize the backup process. So how come when it ends it doesn't write the dates entries? – Aviv Malka Aug 21 '13 at 07:42
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I struck a similar issue with Exchange 2013 when I was using Windows Server Backup (which is already Exchange-aware if run on an Exchange server). When I dug hard enough through Event Viewer, there was a log entry at the time of my backup referring to "VSS Copy mode".

The default VSS mode in Windows Server Backup is "VSS Copy Backup" not "VSS Full Backup". Once I picked "full" (see screenshot), the LastFullBackup property changed (and my logs were truncated as expected).

ARCServe may have a similarly unhelpful default.

Screenshot of VSS Settings page

Matthew
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