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Exchange Plugins
Microsoft Exchange is a messaging and collaborative platform that enables businesses to communicate, share information and collaborate securely and efficiently. It provides email, calendaring, task management, and contacts functionalities, as well as allows users to access their data from anywhere with Internet connection. Exchange is used by organizations of all sizes, from small businesses to large enterprises, and is a critical part of many companies’ communication infrastructure. It is available both as an on-premises solution and as a cloud-based service through Microsoft 365 Software as a Service platform.
Bacula Enterprise Exchange EWS Plugin is a tool to provide backup and restore operations at item level of elements managed by a Microsoft Exchange platform, meaning getting, downloading, cataloging and restoring individual emails, attachments, calendar events, tasks or contacts. Note that the functionality described here is all about traditional on-premise Exchange instances, not about Microsoft 365 Software-as-a-Service email functionality. For information about backing up and restoring emails or any other service of Microsoft 365, refer to:
Bacula Enterprise also provides a traditional plugin to backup and restore Exchange instances through a different plugin, based on Windows VSS technology that is capable of working at a database level. That option is recommended for disaster recovery strategies, while the plugin discussed in the current document is intended to be used for item level capabilities. For information about Exchange Plugin based on VSS, refer to:
In order to have the best protection level for a Microsoft Exchange on-premise instance, Bacula Systems recommends using a combined strategy of the two plugins. Exchange EWS Plugin can be used to restore small pieces of lost information at a user level. However, in case of suffering a disaster where the whole Exchange deployment has been impacted, the recommended protection will be given by the Exchange Plugin, based on VSS, where the speed to recover a full database will be superior.