A majority of organizations are
implementing MS Exchange Server. Exchange administrators may come across a
plethora of circumstances that necessitate backing up Exchange Information
Stores. There is a big list of scenarios that may render your Exchange data
inaccessible at some point in time. The list goes like: disk failure, server
failure, losing emails due to hard delete, physical or logical database
corruption, data center failure, mailbox deletion, and more. All these
scenarios add risks of data loss to your business. You need to understand
whether the system is able to recover its services during each one of these
failures. The answer to this lies in implementing a proper backup strategy.
Exchange Server stores data using JET
database engine. This engine is capable of handling multiple databases that
reside in various storage groups. Also, backing up Exchange database files
requires you to take them offline, i.e. not serving any user requests. Backup
utilities may also perform online backups by using an API to freeze the
database and write data to a temporary file. The process allows backing up
entire database. In case of offline backups, you may not require backing up log
files if you have dismounted your database correctly. If you faced a power
outage and the information store crashed, you should backup the entire database
directory.
The Windows backup tool 'NTBackup' can be
used to backup Exchange databases. The backup file will have '.BKF' extension.
However, you may fail to restore data from backups when your Exchange BKF files
become corrupt. Typically, Exchange BKF corruption happens due to virus
infection, backup interruption, missing catalog files, some corrupt Exchange
items when performing online backups, and backup software malfunction. When you
perform backups using Window 'NTBackup' utility, you cannot figure out
corruption. The tool will not help you realize that you are backing up corrupt
Exchange data. In addition, Microsoft does not provide an inbuilt tool to
repair corrupt BKF files.
In such circumstances, you require taking
help of professional Exchange BKF repair software. A number of advanced
utilities are available in the market that help you safely recover data from
corrupt BKF files. With the help of these utilities, you can quickly regain
access to your mailboxes, public folders, storage groups, and other Exchange
items. These tools record all activities in a log file. Further, they support
all the latest versions of MS Exchange, including MS Exchange Server 2007 and
2003.
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