Deleting transaction logs after full backups

[BGM2]

I'm running into an issue with the database transaction logs not getting truncated during full information store backups using a certain popular 3rd party backup software. We are going to try using Windows backup as a test as it supposedly used the same API that this software users, but are their any known issues with 3rd party backup software and Exchange 2010 and the truncating of transaction logs?

 

[Alexei Segundo]

There have been some issues reported with the Exchange Search Indexer service:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/exchangesvravailabilityandisasterrecovery/thread/dcf3a54b-ac64-46de-8667-d838091a8715

Alexei

 

[BGM2]

I should have mentioned that I have not yet implemented a DAG but let me read through this thread as it looks interesting.

 

[BGM2]

I get the same results with Windows backups. The thread above doesn't indicate a conclusion to this issue. Was there any? Looks like another Microsoft support call....

 

[Brian Day MCITP]

Have you disabled the Microsoft Exchange Replication Service VSS Writer before using WSBackup? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd876854.aspxMicrosoft Premier Field Engineer, Exchange
MCSA 2000/2003, CCNA
MCITP: Enterprise Messaging Administrator 2010
Former Microsoft MVP, Exchange Server
My posts are provided "AS IS" with no guarantees, no warranties, and they confer no rights.

 

[Tom Vanopoulos]

Using Windows Backup did you just select the Exchange Server directory? And under the Advance Settings did you choose the VSS Full Backup?

Also, check to see if the following service is started Microsoft Exchange Server Extension for Windows Server Backup

After the backup completes, is there any errors? Does it say it is successful?

MCITP: Enterprise Messaging Administrator 2007/2010 | MCITP: Server Administrator | MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure, Configuring | MCP | MCDST

 

[BGM2]

I backed up my E: and L: which is where my database and log files are respectively. I did choose VSS Full Backup. The Microsoft Exchange Server Extension for Windows Server Backup is not started. The backup does say it completed successfully.

I'll start the service above and try again.

 

[BGM2]

I understand, no this service is not started and from my reading it's not supposed to be started. So to recap I'm backing up E: and L: where my logs and database files are. The above service is not started and set to manual. I didn't install the command line tools for Windows backup. There is no errors in the backup jobs. I did chosse VSS Full Backup. I tried this on 2 different Exchange 2010 servers.

I originally started researching this issue as I have a SE from Symantec onsite for our Netbackup install and when the logs weren't truncating I attempted the Windows backup as supposed they use the same API.

 

[BGM2]

Found out the transaction logs are getting truncated after all. Since I only have 1 test account and so little traffic was being generated there was only one log file needing to be truncated. The way we discover this was dismounting the databases and deleting all the log files, generate some mail traffic, and running another backup. We noticed that only 00001 file was now gone. Generated more traffic and noticed 00002 and 0003 etc were now gone.

So at the end of the day everything is working correctly....Ug.