Summary

In this chapter, we explored multiple Exchange features that, when working together, might reduce the necessity for traditional backups or even, in some cases, eliminate them altogether. Using single item recovery together with In-Place Hold will ensure deleted and modified items are kept easily available in case they need to be recovered. Another advantage is that even end users can recover them. However, this usually comes at a high cost: storage.

DAGs have also reduced the likelihood of needing backups to perform a restore of data. Having multiple database copies ensures that a database, server, or even datacenter failure is quickly recoverable by activating databases on another server. By using lagged copies, we can even protect ourselves against the rare event of data corruption.

Nonetheless, backups will still be used by most companies as not everyone is able to support the requirements needed to run a backup-less environment. As such, we had a look at what should be backed up...