Data Protection for Microsoft Exchange backs
up at the database level, but can restore individual items from the
database backup.
Backing up Exchange servers at the item-level can cause the following
issues:
- Insufficient scalability as item-level backups that are run hourly
on each day of the week still prove to be an inadequate solution.
- More resource strain is added to the production servers.
- Since database backups are still done, the Exchange data is duplicated
as item-level backups. The same data is backed up a second time.
To address these issues, Microsoft provides
these features in Exchange:
- "Deleted Item Restore" can be configured to keep items within
the Exchange Server databases, even after they are deleted. This option
enables the items to be restored later.
- "Deleted Mailbox Restore" can be configured to keep mailboxes
within the Exchange Server databases, even after they are deleted.
This option enables the items to be restored or reconnected later.
- The recovery database enables a database to be restored to a special
database. Wizards and tools are provided by Exchange to extract data
from this database. This process can be done without disrupting the
production servers.
With the Data Protection for Microsoft Exchange mailbox restore feature,
you can run individual mailbox and item-level recovery operations
in Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 or Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 environments
that utilize Data Protection for Microsoft Exchange backups.
See Restoring individual mailbox and mailbox item-level data and Restoring mailbox messages interactively with the Mailbox Restore Browser.