Exchange 2003 VSS issues resolved by Veeam6

[odge]

Hi All,

We've have rather limited success with our exchange server with Veeam 5. Dont get me wrong, it would succeed 1 in 14 times, and every other time it failed.

Its worth noting, that we provide support for another company whose exchange server this is. It was originally and SBS2003 Premium server and using the transition pack it was upgraded to full server and exchange. The original Sql server was replaced by MSDE on it.

Here are things we noticed:
1. it succeeded seldomly,
2. to conserve high speed spingled, the operating system ran off their slower array
3. there were several different types of VSS errors, from time outs, to actual error codes (which differed from time to time). (Error code: [0x800423f2] also Writer's state: [VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_FREEZE] also Backing up object "GuestIndexData.zip" VSSControl: FinishSnapshot failed, KeepSnapshot error: [Freeze job already stopped.]
4. the guestIndexdata.zip would often fail, never had the VSS worked if the guestIndexData.zip failed

We did the following:
1. got rid of excess files on this server, as much as possible (WSUS db and files, Black berry enterprise server (and tomcats 150'000 files), chop chop chop, reducing the size by 150GB, and some 200'000 files).
2. changed the time of the backup
3. after doing the above, vss was still failing
4. we upgraded to Veeam 6.... and the speed was noticably faster... wow!

Possibly it was a combination of the above, but it worked first time (even the day before veeam 5 had failed - and no restart, and now VSS has no errors), and I hope it keeps working.

Personally I think Gostev is right when he mentions the speed (or our customers expectation of backing up a ridiculously sized server with too many files), is probably right. I think all 4 steps contribute to the backup working.

[Gostev]

Hi Matthew, thanks for the update. Running too many application on the same server certainly increases the chance of VSS timing out, because VSS framework only allows up to 60 seconds for them all to get quiesced. And when multiple application starting to do their "housekeeping" stuff, this puts too much pressure on storage and everything takes too long. This is like trying to open Outlook when Windows is still booting up, hard drive gets way too busy. Thanks!