Exchange 2007 backup for Windows Server 2008 released!

Hi all,

This is just a note to spread the good news about Exchange Server 2007 backup on Microsoft Windows Server 2008.

We’ve just released v5.2 of BackupAssist, which comes with its very own plug-in for backing up Exchange 2007 servers running locally on Server 2008!

Unfortunately the backup application that comes with Windows Server 2008, Windows Server Backup (wbadmin), does not have built-in support for live streaming backups of Exchange 2007, like Windows Backup (NTBackup) did in the previous versions of Windows. To backup Exchange 2007 on Server 2008 you need an Exchange-aware backup application that supports the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) writer for Exchange 2007. This is exactly what the latest version of BackupAssist now provides!

The new Exchange 2007 Plug-in in BackupAssist uses Windows Server Backup (wbadmin) to backup your Exchange 2007 databases. When you set up and run a Windows Imaging job from within BackupAssist, BackupAssist will automatically detect that Exchange 2007 is installed, and, once detected, will instruct Windows Server Backup to use the VSS writer for Exchange to commit all databases before the backup runs. BackupAssist will then verify the consistency of your Exchange databases, before proceeding with the backup. A record of the Exchange consistency check is also provided in the BackupAssist backup report.

To use the new plug-in all you need to do is make sure that you’ve selected the appropriate volume to backup where Exchange has been installed. If, for example, Exchange Server was installed on your E: drive, just select E: for backup in your volume selections: BackupAssist will take care of the rest!

Hopefully this will comes as great news for all those frustrated system administrators out there who had to resort to using expensive 3rd party Exchange-aware backup applications just to get a live backup of Exchange 2007 on Server 2008.

You can download a trial of BackupAssist v5.2 from our download page to test drive this new capability for yourself. The BackupAssist v5.2 upgrader is also available on our download page if you’re running an older version of BackupAssist.