My Exchange 2007 Full Backup doesn't delete my transaction logs. Is this a design change? If yes, can someone point me to a URL that speaks about this design change? Thanks Santhosh

Noticed the same thing here. Was looking for an answer. Backup completed sucessfully. Im using LCR BTW to an iscsi volume. Will try another backup and do some more searching.

This looked interesting.. Backup is a versatile application that is included with WindowsServer and modified to support Exchange when you install the Exchange Management Console on a machine. Backup uses legacy streaming APIs to perform mailbox and public folder database backup and restore. Backup does have Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) capability for file level backups, but it does not perform Exchange-aware VSS backups (that is, it does not work with the Exchange VSS writers). We do not recommend the use of Backup as a VSS-based backup solution for Exchange databases. Although Backup is versatile, its features are limited. Many third-party backup tools have a much more robust feature set. Hmm, anyone got any more info on this?

What product are you using to backup Exchange? Are you running the backup local to the Exchange server or across the network?

Hi Joel, Well 2nd backup still no good. Backup was local to a local drive and also tried to a networked drive. Tried 2 full backups, made sure to select the correct server etc. Im thinking Ill just shut the database down and delete the logs & or setup circular logging in the meantime. No errors in the logs at all. Backup all nice and complete and ESE logged events report all backed up ok etc. Maybe I should log a support call, but Im just using our MSDN copy for testing, eval. We usually dont recommend anyone deploy software before at least SP1. But if you have a any suggestions that would be great.

going with circular logging and lcr until this issue is patched up.

After you do a backup do you generate logs? I see Exchange deleting the transactions logs after more logs are generated after the backup.

You should see a event log following the full or inc backup of the replica telling you that it won't immediatly delete logs for source and copy storage groups. Event Type: Information Event Source: MSExchangeRepl Event Category: Exchange VSS Writer Event ID: 2046 ... Description: The Microsoft Exchange Replication Service VSS writer (instance 27834cbe-1af1-4616-b46e-2c88e1178102) has successfully completed the backup of storage group 'sg03'. Database log truncation has been requested for this storage group. Log truncation will occur on the active copy after the next log generation is created. Log truncation will occur automatically on the passive copy after that log file is copied. If you are still experiencing problems please give us an exact description of what you are doing and we'll try for a repro. 1) Backup type (shadow copy or streaming) and backup application 2) Source or Copy backup 3) mailbox load method during backup(real, simulated with Mapi tool or test mailflow cmdlet, etc) 4) application event log chain generated during the backup operation Thanks! -Chris

Ok thanks Chris, I saw this and thought Id need to get a thrid party thing. "Microsoft does not provide an Exchange-aware VSS-based backup solution. The Windows Server 2003 Backup utility does not support VSS. Backup can take VSS shadow copies of the Exchange database and log files, but this is done at the file level. These copies are not Exchange-aware backups. Third-party backup software is required to back up the Exchange database with VSS. You must buy an Exchange-aware backup solution to take advantage of VSS functionality." Ill check my logs and tell you what they say. Backup with 2003x64 R2 Enterprise ntbackup on the msx server itself. "Normal" backup, Im guessing streaming. (how do I tell?) Little to no load on mailboxes. Ok found the backup, you can see it here BTW at the time there were zero errors only nice white info events. I remember seeing it saying it was backing up and had finished. As you see no 2046 event. Thanks

hi folks, we are using e2k7 serversas mailbox cluster and publicfolder server in single mode. a backup with ntbackup does delete log files on the single server but not on theccr cluster. also i've notedthe same messages inapps log as speeddensity. because we want go productive with the cluster,i need a quick solution with this issue. any help was appreciated. thanks a lot olaf

Hi Olaf, Even after you back up an Exchange Server on a CCR, the logs should not be truncated until they are copied to the other server. I suspect a problem with the log replication. Check that msexchangerepl is running on both machines, and then from Exchange Management Shell run get-storagegroupcopystatus to confirm that replication is healthy. You can get the verbose description of whythe copying may be in a failed state by doing `get-storagegroupcopystatus | fl fail* `. Also the event log can be quite helpful. -martin

Hi All, I came across this with a customer this week and the issue was one of definition. The customer was doing a full backup of the entire server which will not clear the transaction logs as this means that NTBackup is using VSS to backup the stores at a file level. For the transaction logs to clear we need NTBackup to backup Exchange at an ESE API level instead which it will do if it's on a machine with the Exchange system manager installed. The answer was to create a new, Normal backup job, expand the Exchange Server object and then select the information stores and then back that up.The backup has just run successfully and the logs are gone. More info at http://support.microsoft.com/?id=258243and it's explained nicely in the following Exchange team blogs: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2004/06/21/161564.aspx http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2004/06/25/166104.aspx Hope that helps, Charles

Hi, If it seemed like one of the transaction log got locked. Please failover your CCR. Logs will purge in a min time. or Exchange Mailbox server restart and performing the full backup. Dinesh S.

Hi Exchange 2007 full Backup doesn't delete transaction logs in just one condition i think : you are using exchange 2007 SP 1 . you need to update you server with Service pack 2 which fix the problem . it is a bug in the Windows backup server tool fixed in SP2 Thanks