Backup multiple public folder mailboxes

[Regnor]

We have an open case where the public folder data from a customer doesn't get backuped; Case #02563397.
If you select the public folder mailbox in the Veeam Exchange Explorer, it only shows an empty folder named "Public".
This customer has distributed the publicfolders over multiple publicfolder mailboxes, so I was wondering if VBO could have a potential problem with that.
In the logs you can see that all further public folder mailboxes are ignored:

User skipped: PublicfolderMailbox2 (nothing to process)

Was this tested and should it be possible to backup multiple publicfolder mailboxes?

[Mike Resseler]

Unless I misunderstand the setup, but it is not. It is in the release notes: "When creating public folder backups, you can select only the primary hierarchy mailbox for the backup."

[Regnor]

I've also read this, but wasn't sure about the wording: It's true that I can only select the primary hierarchy mailbox in VBO (the secondarys aren't shown for selection), but I would have thought that all the data does get backuped anyway. But in this case nothing is backuped at all, besides an emtpy primary hierarchy mailbox.

[Mike Resseler]

I will need to verify further, but as far as I know secondary mailboxes are not included in the backup. Only the primary hierarchy mailbox. Is there data in that one?

[Regnor]

All mailboxes contain about the same amount of data; also the primary hierarchy mailbox.

But I think we're on the right track know. Our support engineer disabled impersonation and it looks like some content now does get backuped. I had to correct the permissions on all folders, but tomorrow we'll see how it goes. I'll update this post.

[Regnor]

So, I can confirm that without impersonation all public folders were now successfully backuped.
Although the job log only shows the primary hierarchy mailbox, the content of all other secondary ones is listed below this object.

I would like to create a feature request for this case.
VBO shouldn't silently ignore the public folder mailboxes in case there are secondary mailboxes; there was no warning/error in this case.
Also with impersonation disabled there were still no warnings, that the backup user can't access the publicfolders. After setting owner permissions on each folder, they were backuped.
I fear that new folders will be created, but not integrated in the backup because of missing permissions.

[Mike Resseler]

@Regnor

Ideally, we would completely change the way we protect public folders and use the graph to get the data. I don't foresee that to happen soon I'm afraid. We can look at your suggestion, but for some of the points I am not sure if we can do certain things. I will discuss it in a few weeks with a team to see what can be done but I am not going to promise anything. Protecting public folders is not an easy task at this moment

[Regnor]

I sure understand that, and I would also feel much better if there weren't any publicfolders at all...

[Mike Resseler]

@Regnor

... if there weren't any public folders at all ... That is something MSFT is trying for a decade and longer already. I'm afraid they will need to understand (just like us) that they won't go away soon...

[Regnor]

I know...
There are some use cases where publicfolder make sense or are easier to handle, but from a backup and migration perspective, it's much more comfortable to not having to work with them; where possible I try to replace them with alternatives. Anyway, I'm absolutly sure that we're still going to see them in the next years.