Microsoft Exchange has evolved from a straightforward e-mail communications tool to a full-blown mission critical application behaving as a database containing critical documents, images and files. For mission critical applications backup is important, but recovery is everything. Exchange is no exception to this. For IT organizations, much of the mental focus for critical applications availability focuses on the backup process to ensure if there is 1) enough space and 2) the backup will complete in time. Unfortunately less focus is given to the recovery process. Recovery usually means loss of access to an application for the duration of the recovery and can cost companies from $25,000 to over $4 million hourly, depending on the business. Effectively managing the Exchange recovery process is becoming increasingly important with RPO and RTO requirements now similar to those of transaction systems.
The majority of data and storage related problems are discovered fairly quickly and, therefore, the majority of data-recovery operations begin within a relatively short time following the actual failure. On average, approximately 90 percent of all data-recovery operations occur within 24 hours after the initial problem. This means that the problem was detected and corrective actions were taken within 24 hours. Nearly 95 percent of all data recoveries are completed within one week of the problem detection, and over 99 percent of all data recoveries occur within a month. Given the widespread use and increasingly critical role that Exchange plays, choosing the appropriate technologies that will deliver the RTO and RPO needed are key to maintaining high availability levels for Exchange. Options include 1)Virtual Tape Libraries (disk drive solution only, that appears as tape), 2) Integrated Virtual Tape Libraries (robotic libraries with a disk array buffer as a front-end), 3) robotic tape libraries and 4) manual, human mounted, tape drives. Early studies suggest that tape is faster than disk for the Exchange backup application and may be also for the recovery process given the very large sizes of Exchange files, which can exceed 100 GB. Carefully planning this process in your specific environment is key.
Action Item: As the critical role of Exchange grows daily, building a very fast, best-of-breed backup/recovery architecture becomes increasingly important to avoid lost business and revenue from an Exchange recovery. Users should take the time to analyze and size their typical backup streams and determine their required RTO and RPO to select the technology that best fits their needs. This can be done and it may take a little effort, but given the role Exchange is playing, it will definitely be worth the effort.
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