RE: (OT) SMTP: OBSD <-> Win2000

[Matthew Ostiguy <mostiguy@netnumina.com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Shockley
To: misc@openbsd.org
Sent: 1/15/01 2:15 PM
Subject: RE: (OT) SMTP: OBSD <-> Win2000

> 3. No native backup of individual mailboxes. There was an MS 
> Knowledge Base item saying that the way to recover a mailbox 
> from backup is to build another exchange server, restore full 
> mail database from backup, then have user log onto that and 
> pick up lost mail.

While that is true, MS also doesn't pretend that they include 
a backup solution with Exchange or NT/2k.  Most third-party 
backup software will handle single-mailbox restores well.

MS didn't pretend to really have a backup solution for NT 4.0, whose native
backup solution was pretty weak (couldn't remotely back up registeries,
etc), but Win2k's appears to be a bit more robust. I would like to know what
3rd party backup solution you have that handles single mailbox restores very
well. In Exchange speak, that is a brick level backup, as the backup
software must connect to the Exchange data store using MAPI, and pull each
mailbox out individually. Exchange's data store has a single instance store
feature, so one attachment for multiple local recipients is stored once (a
commo delimited list our our mailboxes would indicated 10.8 gigs, but our
actual store is 9.1 gigs, last time I checked). Anyhow, a brick level backup
takes far far (200% and up) more time than a regular database backup. I have
yet to see a product that backs up the database, and allows you to pull out
a mailbox from tape, without needed to restore database to a server. 

Finally, Exchange 2k has web services built in, no more IIS. It remains to
be seen how robust they will be though (as opposed to E5.5 and Outlook Web
Access on IIS 4.0 on NT 4.0). In E2k, every object in the data store is
inherently locatable via a URL. 

Matt Ostiguy couldn't find his OpenBSD polo shirt to bring to the Exchange
conference in Dallas.