Question about circular logging in Exchange 2003

I

iamkion132

n00b
Joined
Feb 27, 2007
Messages
57
I've been having issues with storage space and after doing some research I noticed a lot of log files in the Exchange folder (~5.5GB). After talking with our support company, they recommended that I turn on Circular logging and this would help with the storage space issue some.



The question that I have is about back/recovery. We use Backup Exec 12.5 as our backup software and I know there are some mixed opinions on it. To keep a long question short, if something were to happen to Exchange, would the backups made through backup exec be enough to recover from?


I'll have to double check but if I remember properly the backup job is checked under all resources/(server name)/Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes as well as Microsoft Exchange Public Folders. The backup files are *.bfk file extension

I'm not sure if this picture helps my question at all, especially about the log files. I took a screen shot a short while ago when I was trying to document some stuff for questions I had for the support company.
Here's the link to the photo http://i.imgur.com/Bqg7h.jpg Should the old transactions logs be flushed if I'm reading the responses correctly and from what I've seen in the screen shot?

Also would an error prevent the logs from being deleted? There is one email in one person's account that can't verify and backup exec gives a failure code of 0xe00002f5 I really hate asking such banal questions but I'm sort of new to Exchange and am taking less than baby steps as to not screw something up.
 
NetJunkie said:
Your support company sucks. Never use circular logging. Ever.
Click to expand...

These are the type of responses that I wasn't looking forward to. I'm really taking less than baby steps when addressing this because I've got limited experience with some of the "deeper" parts of Exchange. I'll be talking with them tomorrow over some of the concerns I have about this.
 
You don't want transaction logs overwriting each other. If you need to do a database restore you're screwed. Google it. It's been a best practice since Exchange 5 was first released. Yes, you can backup and restore an Exchange DB with circular logging but with that enabled you can't do a restore of the DB and then "roll forward" the changes with the transaction logs right up to the failure. You're stuck where ever your last good backup was.

Don't do it. Add some disk.

That better? Go Google it...thousands of blog posts, whitepapers, and articles on why it's a bad idea.

EDIT: And not to be a jerk but transaction logs and databases are Exchange 101. If you don't really understand those you're going to be in real trouble should something bad happen. Go learn it...know it. Know how they work and how to repair them if needed.
 
NetJunkie said:
You don't want transaction logs overwriting each other. If you need to do a database restore you're screwed. Google it. It's been a best practice since Exchange 5 was first released. Yes, you can backup and restore an Exchange DB with circular logging but with that enabled you can't do a restore of the DB and then "roll forward" the changes with the transaction logs right up to the failure. You're stuck where ever your last good backup was.

Don't do it. Add some disk.

That better? Go Google it...thousands of blog posts, whitepapers, and articles on why it's a bad idea.

EDIT: And not to be a jerk but transaction logs and databases are Exchange 101. If you don't really understand those you're going to be in real trouble should something bad happen. Go learn it...know it. Know how they work and how to repair them if needed.
Click to expand...

Not being a jerk as I understand perfectly my post makes me look somewhat stupid. That's partially my fault but I didn't want to write a novel with every detail about this topic. Thanks for the help though.
 
If you have another volume with more space you can move the database files or log files to free up some space.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top