Maintaining the Information Store

Maintaining the Information Store

Since Exchange V5.0 was released, I have never encountered a situation where the Information Store has been corrupted through a proven software bug. This isn?t to say that the software is perfect (it is, however, getting better all the time). It does reflect personal experience and the fact that the vast bulk of known database corruptions are due to hardware problems. The most common problems that can cause corruption within a database are:


	?	Hard disk failures


	?	Bugs in controller software


	?	Controller failures

Installing the best possible I/O subsystem and then maintaining it properly is vital to success with Exchange. The situation is simple: either you think the Exchange databases are important and take every possible step to protect them or you don?t. It is amusing to see so many people worrying about the speed or number of their CPUs while never spending any time or money on disks and controllers. In particular, the decision to spend a few thousand extra dollars to install a high-end disk controller to protect data and increase performance seems like a no-brainer.

Systems that are well configured and managed experience less outages than those who limp along hoping that problems (and bugs) won?t happen. You can take the following steps to protect your data:


	1.	Perform a backup every day. If possible, take a full backup (it makes restores easier).


	2.	Isolate the transaction logs from the databases. Never put the transaction logs...

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Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5: Planning, Design, and Implementation

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