Posts Tagged ‘ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange’
Granular Recovery in Microsoft Exchange Environments
By: Deni Connor
Principal Analyst, Storage Strategies NOW
StorageCraft’s announcement of software that recovers and migrates Microsoft Exchange mailboxes and message stores is significant in that it adds essential data protection capabilities for SMB’s business-critical Exchange environments.
Market impact
Microsoft Exchange in the past few years has been viewed by many organizations as a business-critical application. End-users and business executives use Exchange as their personal database of contacts and as a chronicle of business events. Users spend as much as two hours each day with e-mail activities. Knowing that such a great deal of time is spent with e-mail and that it is such an important part of any business, it behooves an organization to protect their Microsoft Exchange environments and ensure that individual e-mails and mailboxes can be recovered quickly and easily.
To backup Exchange databases, many Exchange administrators perform two Exchange backups – one, a full backup of the database, and a second, brick-level backup of individual mailboxes – a time-consuming process, which is unnecessary, with the correct tools.
Further, many IT organizations are involved in migrations from Microsoft Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 – a process they find usurious and problematic — often necessitating days or even weeks of time for Exchange administrators and downtime for the Exchange message repository. Often the migration process is feared and put off because of the nightmare situations a migration can cause.
The solution
StorageCraft’s ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange (GRE) allows IT administrators both the capability of an entire backup of the Exchange database and a brick-level recovery, without the need for creating two backups. It backs up Exchange database files (EDBs) and log files that contain the records of changes made to the database and what is sent and received since the last backup. GRE, in combination with ShadowProtect Server or ShadowProtect SBS (which may be bundled with GRE), takes a point-in-time copy of the Exchange server. Once the image format is mounted and a drive letter assigned, the administrator can launch GRE from a Windows desktop PC and search for specific mailboxes, e-mails and attachments. All this can be done without a live Exchange server being present.
Once the administrator determines the deleted email, mailbox or attachment they want to recover, GRE provides a mechanism for retrieving them to the live production server without taking the server down. Alternately, the messages can be saved to a .PST file, as well.
Migrating from one version of Exchange to another is also an easy process with GRE. Administrators simply bring the new Exchange server online and drag and drop e-mail boxes from the old server to the new one.
SSG-NOW Assessment
ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange complements StorageCraft’s ShadowProtect Server and its ShadowProtect Small Business Server to give small and mid-size businesses a comprehensive recovery environment for their business-critical applications and file servers. The product, which works with all versions of Windows, also offers reports that help administrators manage the Exchange environment – deleting redundant emails and attachments and minimizing storage utilization. In addition, it’s search capabilities allow administrators to specify criteria for the messages or mailboxes they want to retrieve, making the product a shoo-in for SMBs that must recover and protect their Exchange environments.
For more information visit:
StorageCraft.com: Granular Recovery For Exchange
StorageCraft Releases ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange
Disaster recovery software provides IT administrators a simple way to restore or migrate Exchange mailboxes, e-mail messages and attachments
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DRAPER, Utah, U.S.A. – Jan. 19, 2010 – StorageCraft Technology Corporation, a provider of innovative disaster recovery, system migration, data protection and security solutions for servers, desktops and laptops, today announced the availability of StorageCraft ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange™, the latest version in the award-winning ShadowProtect™ line of backup and disaster recovery software for Windows systems and data. ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange gives administrators the ability to restore individual Exchange mailboxes, e-mail messages or e-mail attachments, minimizing downtime following a major or minor crisis.
In conjunction with ShadowProtect Server™ or ShadowProtect Small Business Server™, administrators can restore entire mailboxes or specific information in each mailbox – such as individual e-mail messages and attachments or specific files and folders – without the need to restore the entire Exchange database. They can opt to restore the messages and information directly to their production Exchange server or to a new or existing PST file. Restoring an Exchange mailbox or e-mail message takes moments, rather than hours to complete.
“Managing Exchange can be a difficult task and there is a great need for a tool that allows small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) the ability to do this without hiring an Exchange administrator,” said Deni Connor, principal analyst with Storage Strategies NOW, a research firm focusing on storage technologies. “Technology like ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange can allow resellers and SMB administrators to provide quick recovery of a lost e-mail message or migration to a new Exchange server without the need to hire Exchange administrators.”
ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange also allows IT professionals to rapidly migrate to a new Exchange server. Moving users from the old server to the new version of Exchange is a simple “drag and drop” procedure.
In addition, searching Exchange backups – EDB files – to find messages based on specific criteria is a simple process. Administrators may use the search capability in ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange when e-discovery or other corporate necessity requires a search of the Exchange database based on keywords, messages sent to or from a specific domain, messages within a specified time period or messages with specific subject matter.
ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange will simplify the task of restoring, migrating or searching an Exchange database. It will save hours of work and help administrators maintain business continuity.
“I had two different customers that deleted all of their contacts in Microsoft Exchange 2003 and 2007,” said Caleb Roberts, vice president at Data1st, Inc. “We were able to use ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange to export all of their contacts from the last ShadowProtect backup image to a PST file. I was then able to import them back into the users’ Exchange accounts. The process was simple and my customers had minimal down time.”
Additional Features
ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange also simplifies Exchange management by quickly creating reports on Exchange usage. Administrators can run reports on messages by mailbox, messages by date, attachment statistics and domain statistics. Reports may be viewed or saved for later use.
ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange has the following benefits:
*Recover mailboxes, e-mail messages and e-mail attachments to an Exchange server or a PST file.
*Restore or migrate individual mailboxes quickly and easily.
*Search individual mailboxes or e-mail messages for specific keywords based on user-specified criteria.
*Migrate users to a new version of Exchange with ease.
*Generate comprehensive reports for simplified Exchange management.
“Our partners and customers need an easy way to rapidly recover individual Exchange mailboxes or e-mail messages without performing a second backup,” said Brandon Nordquist, vice president of product management at StorageCraft. “ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange uses an existing ShadowProtect backup image of your Exchange server to perform brick-level recovery of entire mailboxes or e-mail messages and attachments. You don’t waste resources performing two kinds of backups and the whole process is quick and simple.”
Pricing and Availability
ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange is available as a bundle with ShadowProtect Server or ShadowProtect Small Business Server, or as an upgrade for existing ShadowProtect Server or ShadowProtect Small Business Server licensees.
ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange is available from authorized StorageCraft distributors and value-added resellers (VARs). Volume discounts are available.
For additional information about StorageCraft ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange, or to learn more about volume licensing, please email discounts@storagecraft.com, call +1 801 545-4700 or visit: www.storagecraft.com/ShadowProtectGRE.
About StorageCraft Technology Corporation
StorageCraft Technology Corporation provides innovative disaster recovery, system migration, data protection and security solutions for servers, desktops and laptops. StorageCraft delivers software products that reduce downtime, improve security and stability for systems and data and lower the total cost of ownership for servers, desktops and laptops.
www.storagecraft.com
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ShadowProtect, ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange, ShadowProtect Server and ShadowProtect Small Business Server are trademarks of StorageCraft Technology Corporation. Other company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.