If you are running Microsoft Exchange then you will be familiar with the backup options. As any IT person will tell you, taking a regular backup of your data is an essential routine. Not only is it good business practice, it is now legally required for most modern businesses who use electronic mail.

Email is the preferred method of communication for businesses today. It makes up over 85% of day to day communications between organizations. It is estimated that we send over 200 billion emails every single day worldwide. All this traffic has to be stored somewhere so exchange backup is a very important task.

You have three options within Exchange 2007. You can take an online backup, which will be performed while the server is still live and your IS still mounted. This method allows the server still continue processing mail while taking the backup. It also includes a file level corruption check which compares the checksums for each database block. This method does take longer as the server has to process emails as well as perform the backup, but it does allow business to continue around it while it does the work.

Next option is the Offline backup. It is pretty much what it says. The server has to be taken out of service, the Information Store dismounted and a backup taken. Offline backups are only generally taken in fault situations. If something went wrong with the online backup, or the server needs to be taken down for maintenance then this method of exchange backup is viable. It does mean however that it cannot process mail requests so has to be done out of hours.

Last but not least is the NT Backup option. This was built in to all versions of Microsoft Server software up until Server 2008 when it was superseded by Windows Backup and Restore Center. It allows you to backup locally or remotely, to schedule backups for out of hours and has Volume Shadow Copy support. This software came as part of the Exchange package from Exchange 2000 is a perfectly good tool. Backups using NT Backup can be taken either online or offline, the choice is yours.

There are Microsoft Wizards to guide new users through the configuration of each option so it isn’t too difficult to get any of them working. The method you choose will be dependent on the needs of your business. If you run a 24/7 operation then downtime of any kind is not acceptable, therefore an online backup would suit you best. If you have scheduled downtimes for maintenance then any of the options will suit you. NT Backup can do either online or offline backups, and has been replaced with the Backup and Restore Center in Server 2008.