In my previous Cool Solutions article, I discussed the enhancements Veeam has made with its NSS support, adding support for OES 2015 with Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 and then adding OES 2015 SP1 support in 9.5 Update 1. This makes Veeam an excellent solution for protecting Micro Focus Open Enterprise Server.  But what about GroupWise?

Protecting GroupWise is something easily done through Veeam's agentless image-based approach to backups.  Application-consistency is ensured using pre-freeze and post-thaw scripts when running GroupWise on either Windows or Linux.  Pre-freeze scripts are executed immediately prior to the hypervisor snapshot and post-thaw scripts are executed immediately after the snapshot is taken.



The GroupWise agents are stopped in the pre-freeze scripts and are restarted in the post-thaw scripts.  This means the agents are down for only as long as it takes to create the snapshot and both the GroupWise client and WebAccess will automatically reconnect without returning an error to the end-user.  Sample scripts are available in the Veeam Hub.

This opens several possibilities for performing restores.  First, there is traditional File-Level Restore (FLR) of the GroupWise Post Office to a Restore Area allowing users to restore items through the GroupWise client.  Second, Veeam's Instant VM Recovery feature allows the administrator to spin up any needed GroupWise VMs directly from the backup repository.  These VMs should be connected to an isolated network along with a client VM, where the GroupWise client can then archive any needed items.  Finally, in the event of a full disaster, entire VMs can be restored.

With all these capabilities, GroupWise availability can still be enhanced further by adding Micro Focus GroupWise Disaster Recovery powered by Reload into the mix.  Whether considering hot backup of GroupWise without restarting agents at all or end user self-service without any IT intervention, GroupWise Disaster Recovery adds powerful capabilities to an already robust Veeam solution.  Let's take a deeper look.

With GroupWise Disaster Recovery, you get one-click disaster recovery – entire or granular – of the GroupWise mail system.  It helps to both quickly restore messages and create hot backups of Post Offices and domains.  GroupWise Disaster Recovery also provides end users with self-service capabilities, allowing to retrieve and restore individual email, calendar items, or attachments without assistance from IT admins.



What's more, in case of a primary GroupWise system failure, GroupWise Disaster Recovery can serve as a GroupWise email system and you'll still be able to send and receive email, manage your calendar and so on.  Once the issue is resolved and your primary system is up and running again, thanks to hot backups GroupWise Disaster Recovery can synchronize data created or changed while the system was down resulting in no data loss for you.



To protect the environment further, GroupWise Disaster Recovery itself should be backed up with Veeam Backup & Replication.  Since there aren't any running GroupWise databases it's easy to take consistent backups of GroupWise Disaster Recovery.  This allows for multiple backup copies, adhering to the 3-2-1 rule for data protection.

Veeam Backup & Replication is already a powerful, market-leading Availability solution for virtual environments.  Combining its image-based backup using application-aware processing with GroupWise Disaster Recovery offers the ultimate in protection for GroupWise environments.  This best-of-breed combination gives complete protection for your virtual environment from Veeam and Micro Focus.