Re: [exim] Exchange move

On 12/20/05, Jason Meers <Jason.Meers@???> wrote:
>
> >
> > To me, this post shows a lack of understanding on how exchange works,
> and
> > more so when it comes to the point on how to handle a corrupt server.
> >
>
> Nice, but not as good as a sound argument backed by facts would have
> been though.


Like running Exchange servers for several years and not having *any* data
corruptions. Like restoring backups successfully 2 or 3 times (to alternate
machines) for mailbox retrieval after someone decided that a deleted mailbox
just *had* to be retrieved? Like testing DR situations and actually
demonstrating that they worked. (Not that I ever used them).

>
> >
> > Only if you have severe corruption, which you would avoid by actually
> taking
> > care of your data.
> >
> I actually expect this to be the job of the server. How should I take
> care of my data, should I stop people sending and receiving emails, or
> prevent people from opening their mailbox.
>
> Should I EXPECT corruption as a day-to-day part of running an exchange
> server and allocate extra resources to hunting for it? It sounds like a
> lot of EXTRA work, are you a volunteer that doesn't need paying or does
> this cost time and money?


No. You should NOT expect data corruption, as a day-to-day part of running
exchange. If you REALLY get data corruption on a daily basis running
Exchange , you need to find out WHY.

>>- Your information store could have been corrupt for weeks before
> >>crashing
> >
> >
> > Uhm, only if you have not backed up the database in that time. Let's
> > reiterate: ALL the major backup tools _will_ do a complete consistency
> check
> > when you back up. If the store is corrupt, you _will_ be told. IF you
> find a
> > corrupt tool, you have the choice of trying a soft recovery on a per
> item
> > basis. You can do a somewhat nastier thing and to a hard recovery and
> just
> > trash whatever was in that object. Or you can to a log replay and do a
> point
> > in time recovery... pretty much the same choices as on a
> > multi-million-dollar-Oracle cluster.
> >


No, it is not true that you can have corruptions and still make a successful
backup. The Exchange server (2000 and above) does an integrity check on the
databases every time a backup is done. I used to periodically check the
servers offline too, which is a stronger check, again with no problems.

Cheers,

Cliff