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Protecting Your Exchange Server
Today, email has become a mission critical application for business. According to IDC, No online application is more widely used than email. Even the smallest companies have embraced this technology as a critical communication tool. Businesses count on having 24×7 email access to communicate with employees, customers and partners, so they need to ensure email servers have effective security solutions in place. And the more your business depends on Microsoft Exchange as your email server, the more important it is to have a complete Exchange Server protection strategy in place. Protection considerations However tight your security measures may be, unforeseen circumstances may lead to your Exchange Server being brought down for a period of time. This is why having a disaster recovery plan is so important. One of the most critical components of any disaster recovery plan is to make sure your backup window is not too short, and that regularly scheduled backups are performed as a part of your overall network protection routine. Time and space are always a concern when it comes to backups, so finding ways to reduce the amount of disk space and tape media required to fully protect Exchange is a challenge. Eliminating redundant copies of backups not only saves space, but it also cuts back on the time required to perform backups. Technology is advancing to enable continuous protection of Exchange, eliminating backup windows entirely. There is also new technology which eliminates the need for mailbox level backups, while still providing the ability to make granular recoveries of emails, folders and mailboxes. Think about it — the loss of a single message may generate hours of unnecessary labor for administrators, lowering productivity within organizations. The ability to recover a single message quickly and easily can be a boon to your operations. New rules regarding e-discovery of email are also going to dramatically affect the need for performing complete and timely backups of your Exchange server due to legal implications. Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are scheduled to take effect December 1, 2006 and will govern the discovery of electronically stored information, also known as e-discovery. These amendments require retention policies to ensure the availability of electronic documents. As part of any disaster recovery plan, consideration now needs to be given on how to ensure the retention of Exchange data to reduce the exposure to legal risks. New Exchange 2007 quick recovery of emails, folders and mailboxes. Using Backup Exec with continuous protection and automatic disk to disk to tape backups can also provide for retention of data to meet legal requirements. Conclusion from Symantec |
Carl Mazzanti is Co-Founder and President of eMazzanti Technologies, Microsoft’s four time Partner of the Year and one of the premier IT consulting services for businesses throughout the New York metropolitan area and internationally. Carl and his company manage over 400 active accounts ranging from professional services firms to high-end global retailers.
eMazzanti is all about delivering powerful, efficient outsourced IT services, such as computer network management and troubleshooting, managed print, PCI DSS compliance, green computing, mobile workforce technology, information security, cloud computing, and business continuity and disaster recovery.
Carl Mazzanti is also a frequent business conference speaker and technology talk show guest and contributor at Microsoft-focused events, including frequent prominent roles at the Microsoft Inspire (Worldwide Partner Conference / WPC).
Carl, a serial Entrepreneur, gives back to the community through Entrepreneur teaching engagements at Georgetown University, the company’s ocean wildlife conservation effort, the Blue Project, and Tree Mazzanti.
