Question about backing up Unity 3.15

[ischarcm]

What is the best method of backing up server/unity data. When system was installed we were advised swapping out one of the mirrored drives and keeping this as a backup periodically... Is this a good method? There is no tape drive.. I have not been doing anything different... Exchange 2k is our mailstore which is a different server.. im mainly concerned with just the mailboxes, call handlers and unity data itself

Thank you

[sallwine]

Go to www.ciscounitytools.com and download the latest DiRT (Disaster Recovery Tool) utility. This will allow you to backup the server data and/or mailboxes to a drive or network location. Once it is backed up to the drive a standard backup utility (Veritas, etc) can pull it off to tape, or you can just keep it on a seperate network box. This also allows you to schedule this process.

Steve

[ischarcm]

thanks will go check that out... I assume this is installed on the unity box... will it run with unity running, or do we have to stop unity? How long does it usually take if we have to stop (330 subscribers) I wonder this because we operate a hospital, and can't afford much downtime if any at all on the box.

Also, is the method im following at all a "sane" method, could it be relied upon assuming data corruption was not the reason we would need to restore?

[sallwine]

Yes, it can run while Unity is active. If you do not backup the mailboxes, then it takes about 5 minutes. If you backup the mailboxes then it takes conciderably longer, depending on the size of your mailstore. Note: if you are already backing up Exchange then do not backup the mailboxes. It is redundant and time consuming. This is the recommended solution for backing up and it works great for any type of restore, even a whole box going down and restoring to a new box. Read the docs that come with it and it should give you a good comfort level.

[ischarcm]

appreciate the advice .. many thanks!