Best practices for protecting Exchange clusters

Use the following guidelines when protecting clustered Exchange environments:

     Add each Exchange server node you wish to protect to the Unitrends system using its native server IP address. Do not use the cluster hostname/IP address used to access the active Exchange server. For details, see About adding clients.

     Do not add the cluster hostname/IP as a separate client.

     Do not backup multiple copies of the same database simultaneously. Each full backup of an active or passive database results in database log truncation. The truncation of logs is replicated to the other members of the cluster where that database exists. If the same database is undergoing a full backup on two nodes, the log truncation of each could interfere with the other. To avoid this, schedule backup of replicated databases at staggered times across the cluster.

     Backup only passive copies to reduce workload on the active server(s).

     Once an Exchange node is added, you can also run file-level backups as described in the File-level Backups chapter.