For Microsoft Exchange Server workloads that are running in a VMware ESXi virtual guest machine, you can use Tivoli® Storage Manager software to take application-consistent backups of virtual machines that are hosting Microsoft Exchange Server data. You can also recover the backup from the virtual machine.
Before you back up data, identify your recovery point objective (RPO). The RPO helps you decide how often to back up data and affects the cost that is associated with data backups.
For example, you can schedule frequent virtual machine backups for necessary recovery points. The recovery point of a virtual machine backup is at the point in time of the backup. While change-block tracking and data deduplication offer savings, frequent virtual machine backups can become expensive when you think about how many virtual machine snapshots you are creating and deleting.
Most traditional in-guest data protection methods provide appropriate RPOs, but these in-guest methods lose the efficiencies that are introduced by backing up data at the virtual machine level.
With planning, you can deploy IBM® Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments: Data Protection for VMware and IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for Mail: Data Protection for Microsoft Exchange Server in a way that preserves the backup efficiencies that are offered by backing up data at a virtual machine level while more granular recovery points are guaranteed.
These software offerings work together to protect Microsoft Exchange Server data in a VMware environment when no other software products are used to back up Microsoft Exchange Server data. Tivoli Storage FlashCopy® Manager for VMware cannot be used with this solution.