Covering your back up - data storage on Exchange (page 1 of 2)

In a world that talks via email, there are no time boundaries and windows for planned downtime have all but disappeared. Email has become a business critical application that the whole organisation depends upon. If the email system stops working then everyone from the CEO to the receptionist knows about it.

Without a plan to avoid downtime, or at least recover quickly when it does occur, the IT department can face a lynch mob. The users are not aware of the size of the challenge faced by the IT team, nor would they care if they were. All they see is that email has stopped working and that is impacting their working day, and in most cases the business as a whole.

"Over a third of corporates are losing critical e-mail correspondence due to inflating volumes and a lack of sufficient back-up and support, according to a survey by Bloor Research. In a statement accompanying the research, senior analyst Robin Bloor said 'Given the central role e-mail now plays in business, it is remarkable that many companies do not implement the necessary level of support and back-up.'" Microscope 22/10/02

This is just part of the problem. If Exchange were just about sending short messages in text format then life would be a little easier. However, the sheer volume of attachments that are being sent and received within emails has meant that Exchange storage has become a major issue. Day in and day out we are sending and receiving jpeg's, mpeg's, PowerPoint presentations, Excel files, Word documents and many more attachments. This has resulted in Exchange being one of the fastest growing consumers of storage capacity.

Rules of engagement
For Exchange administrators to survive and escape the wrath of unforgiving email users, there are three rules to adhere to:

• Ensure that the Exchange Server is kept online

• Ensure that the data is protected

• Ensure that lost data can be recovered quickly, right down to individual emails

In order to meet these rules it is important to architect a solution that will protect the entire IT environment from the storage hardware and its data, across the network infrastructure, through the server hardware and right up to the application level, in a cost-effective and efficient manner.

Downtime avoidance
The best way to ensure quick recovery from an outage (planned or otherwise) is to avoid it in the first place. Aside from sound administrative practices, putting the correct technology in place can overcome many of the causes of unplanned downtime.

Using a logical volume management tool such as VERITAS Volume Manager will avoid running out of disk space and protect against disk failure. It will bring redundancy capabilities such as mirroring, striping and other RAID levels to any disk or combination of disks, regardless of vendor. It will allow more storage to be plugged in without the need to stop or reboot Exchange.

If the storage requirements of the application change then the administrator can dynamically reconfigure or allocate storage as the need dictates. Creating virtual pools of storage in a Storage Area Network (SAN) configuration allows much greater storage utilisation to be achieved.

Faster recovery can be achieved through allowing additional copies of the data or point in time snapshots to be made. These same snapshots, achieved through VERITAS Volume Manager's FlashSnap option, can also be used for off host backups and processing.