There’s quite a lot of information out there on backup tasks, my biggest frustration is that the wizard is not very standard on creating the backup tasks, it’s much easier if you know what you’re doing to create the tasks manually and leave the backup wizard outta the picture.
Here’s the common command line arguments that come with the new-backup cmdlet
new-backup -Clusteraware 'True|False' -lcr 'True|False' -VerifyOnDestVolumes 'src_storage_system_list:src_vol:dest_storage_system:dest_vol' -Verify 'True|False' -Server 'server_name' -StorageGroup 'storage_grp1, storage_grp2, ...' -ManagementGroup 'Standard|Weekly|Daily' -ActiveDatabaseOnly 'True|False' -PassiveDatabaseOnly 'True|False' -BackupTargetServer 'server name' -ActivationPreference 'ActivationPreferenceNum' -UpdateMirror 'True|False' -VerDestVolume 'True|False' -NoUTMRestore 'True|False' -NoTruncateLogs 'False' -Throttle 'throttle_val' -VerificationServer 'server_name' -UseMountPoint 'True|False' -CCRActiveNode Boolean 'True|False' -MountPointDir 'mountpoint_dir' -RetainBackups 'no_of_days_to_retain_backup' -RetainDays 'no_of_days_delete_backup' -Command 'True|False' -RunCommand 'win_path_and_script_name' -GenericNaming 'True|False' -BackupCopyRemoteCCRNode Boolean 'True|False' -RecoveryPoint 'win_path_and_script_name' -ReportProgress 'True|False' -ArchiveBackup 'True|False' -ArchiveBackupCopyRemoteCCRNode 'True|False' -ArchivedBackupRetention 'Hourly|Monthly|Daily|Weekly|Unlimited' -RetainUtmBackups 'no_of_log_backups_to_retain'
I’ve found this one to be useful to backup all members of a DAG, active databases are full backups, secondary/passive databases are copy based backups, no up to the minute backups:
new-backup –Server 'dagname' –ClusterAware –ManagementGroup 'Standard/Daily/Weekly' –RetainDays xx –NoUTMRestore –ActiveDatabaseOnly -UseMountPoint –MountPointDir 'C:\Program Files\NetApp\Snap Manager for Exchange\SnapMgrMountPoint' –RemoteAdditionalCopyBackup $True –RetainRemoteAdditionalCopyBackupDays xx
This one requires an individual task on every server in the DAG however this task will only run on one of the servers, the server that holds the cluster role. This allows for all databases to be backed up and still be able to backup your databases if your nodes fail. This command also allows you to add databases to your exchange environment and not have to modify your backup jobs.
Dear Tom,
This is helping me a little as we are starting up using SnapManager Exchange in our company. As I do not know sure how to start the right way I want to ask you:
we have Exchange 2010, 4x CAS/HUB, 4x MBX. On the 4 MBX-servers I need to install the SnapManagers.
How exactly configure each server -or- how to use the above powershell commandline.
MBX1 has copies of DB’s on MBX2
MBX2 has copies of DB’s on MBX1
MBX3 has copies of DB’s on MBX4
MBX4 has copies of DB’s on MBX3
Second item I need some help with is SnapCreator. Is it really necessary to have JAVA installed on the MBX-server as SnapCreator Agent needs it? I do not want to install JAVA on an Exchange server … Is there another way to get SnapCreator work?
thanks in advance!
Moray
Moray,
I’m not sure what you’re asking, but SME needs to be installed on each and every server in your Exchange environment (including the CAS servers). Once installed then you want to setup SME running through the configuration wizard. Best article to follow would be the TR-4221 (http://www.netapp.com/us/system/pdf-reader.aspx?pdfuri=tcm:10-113952-16&m=tr-4221.pdf)
Keep in mind the latest SME is for Exchange 2013 only, so you’ll have to use the 6.x versions.
SnapCreator isn’t needed for Exchange backups, it’s for things that don’t have their own backup engines. I’d recommend just using the scheduled tasks as shown in this post.
Tom,
I was intrigued by your statement that SME needs to be installed on every Exchange server, including CAS. I can certainly see why it would need to be installed on every mailbox server in a DAG, but why would SME need to be installed on servers that only have that only have the CAS or HT roles installed?
I read through TR-4221 but I could not find a reference to that, so if you could provide a pointer that would be helpful.
Thanks!
I don’t think that’s a requirement anymore (it used to be requested by NetApp support), it does need to be installed on all your mailbox servers though, not necessarly your separate CAS servers
Hi Tom,
Thank you for this clear & very useful guide. It basically worked well for us (SME 6.04 + Exchange 2010), but we have the problem that SME still retains log copies in the SnapInfo directory even if the –NoUTMRestore switch is used.
I saw in the release note of SME 7 that this bug (#693284) is fixed there, but as you wrote above, it only supports Exchange 2013.
Do you know another way to avoid keeping those logs after the backup?
Thanks & Kr,
Fidy
SME 6.1 has been released, this has the bug fix in it for the UTM backups issue and will work on Exchange 2010. If you want to stay on the SME 6.0x releases, check out the P-release change log above and look for the latest P-release, it contains the fix for noutmbackups as well.
SnapCreator isn’t needed for Exchange backups, that is true