Archives created using a Windows backup utility

You can use a Windows backup utility to archive your SnapManager backups. To do so, you mount the LUNs backed up by the Snapshot copy that you want to archive, and then use Windows NTBackup or another Exchange-aware Windows backup utility to copy the archive data to your archive medium.

In this case, the NTFS data is backed up, rather than the raw LUNs, as shown in the following diagram:

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Note: You do not need to mount the LUN on the Exchange server; you can use another computer for archiving.

Your archive must include the following two components:

The SnapInfo directory backed up directly from the Exchange server
The Exchange data extracted from the LUN backed up by a Snapshot copy

Evaluation of the Windows backup utility method of archiving
Using the Windows backup utility to archive your SnapManager backups enables you to select exactly which data you archive; however, you must be careful to avoid scheduling any backups while the archiving is performed.
Example: Using a Windows backup utility to archive SnapManager backups
You can use a script to mount a Snapshot copy of the LUNs that contain the Exchange databases, then back up the databases using Windows NTBackup, unmount the LUNs, and back up the SnapInfo directory.

Parent topic: SnapManager backup archiving