Hi I have to plan backup for archive database on exchange 2010sp1. Could you tell me how you resolve this issue ? Do you backup you archive databases daily ? I read about changing ManagedFolderWorkCycle and I maybe good solutions will be to set this value to 7 days and then make backup every week ? But I'm not sure if I set ManagedFolderWorkCycle to 7 days will I change only scheduler of archiving policy ? I think that daily backup of exchange 2010 archive databases it's not good idea :)

Take a look at this: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd876874.aspx. In my opinion, it should be defined by your SLA.

I know that SLA should define this but I'm looking for practical information, how you resolve such issue

Hi, Agree with Jose. It really depends on your order and environment. Take your backup interval as an example, daily backup will generate much more work but it provide much safe on your data. Thanks.Best Regards!

Really I would say that Archive Databases should probably _never_ be backed up daily. In theory your rules will be set up in such a way that mail will be delivered to the users mailbox database, then after a certain amount of time (lets say 30 days for the sake of argument) it is "archived" off to the archive database. Now lets follow one mail item. 1) Gets delivered to the users Inbox, which lives on MailboxDB1 2) Every night for the next 30 days it is backed up as part of your nightly process. 3) It is archived off to your Archive Database after 30 days. So if you needed to recover this mail item, then you already have 30 days of backups prior, so really you are pretty well taken care of, however we no doubt have a lot of users and we like to sleep good at night so we will probably choose to backup our archive databases AT LEAST 2 times in that initial period where it will take to archive off. In other words if a mail item is archived off in 30 days then a conservative plan would allow for backups of the archive database every 15 days, this will ensure that you maintain protection of your data without having to rely on old tapes while still understanding that generally old data never changes, and really with email it very rarely does. This also allows you to offset the costs of backups significantly, if you are backing up 1/15 of the time then you are only spending 1/15th of the money, and since we are talking about old infrequently changing data the risk is minimal since you will still have adequate coverage from your original backups. Really the biggest factor in determining workable time frames is your backup retention, if you only have a 7-day tape retention then you would be completely insane to attempt backups every 15 days, however if you are dealing with a 90, 180, or 365 then 15 days is more than doable. -mattIf this post is helpful, please mark it as such.

Really I would say that Archive Databases should probably _never_ be backed up daily. In theory your rules will be set up in such a way that mail will be delivered to the users mailbox database, then after a certain amount of time (lets say 30 days for the sake of argument) it is "archived" off to the archive database. Now lets follow one mail item. 1) Gets delivered to the users Inbox, which lives on MailboxDB1 2) Every night for the next 30 days it is backed up as part of your nightly process. 3) It is archived off to your Archive Database after 30 days. So if you needed to recover this mail item, then you already have 30 days of backups prior, so really you are pretty well taken care of, however we no doubt have a lot of users and we like to sleep good at night so we will probably choose to backup our archive databases AT LEAST 2 times in that initial period where it will take to archive off. In other words if a mail item is archived off in 30 days then a conservative plan would allow for backups of the archive database every 15 days, this will ensure that you maintain protection of your data without having to rely on old tapes while still understanding that generally old data never changes, and really with email it very rarely does. This also allows you to offset the costs of backups significantly, if you are backing up 1/15 of the time then you are only spending 1/15th of the money, and since we are talking about old infrequently changing data the risk is minimal since you will still have adequate coverage from your original backups. Really the biggest factor in determining workable time frames is your backup retention, if you only have a 7-day tape retention then you would be completely insane to attempt backups every 15 days, however if you are dealing with a 90, 180, or 365 then 15 days is more than doable. -mattIf this post is helpful, please mark it as such.