SME backing up passive DB in DAG when active is on physical svr

[steamshipins1]

Hi All,

I've got the following setup:-

Exchange 2010 DAG set up with the Active DB on a remote offices physical server with its own local storage.No backups are taken at this end and circular logging is not turned on .The passive copy is on a VM running on our NetApp storage here.

The DB itself is small (20Gb) and we are using the DAG as a backup solution so no user input (changing tapes etc.) is required in the remote office.

If we use SME to back up the passive copy, am I right in thinking that it will truncate the logs on both the active and passive instances?

Thanks

[marnold · Accepted solution]

Grossly oversimplified, but:

SnapManager will tell the local Exchange server that it has been satisfactorily backed up. The local Exchange server will tell the Exchange server hosting the Active database that a copy has been backed up. The server hosting the Active will issue the log truncation command and that will propagate through the DAG copies. Everything trickles down from the Active. SME (or any other backup tool) does not itself issue the truncation. The Active copy knows about the state of play regarding replicated copies and owns all that part of the process.

[steamshipins1]

Thanks for the quick reply!

That makes sense. I'll give it a go then...

[steamshipins1]

Ran a full SME backup this morning and all logs were trancated correctly on all instances.

Thanks again