Bradley Morgan's Blog

To use Windows Server Backup on Exchange 2010 Mailbox Servers with DAG, you can only back up any copies that are currently active on the server. To accomplish this I created a PowerShell script that creates a new backup policy, locates any active copies on the current mailbox server, adds the db and log paths to the backup and initiates it. One prerequisite is that you have to disable the VSS writer in the MB server’s registry, per Microsoft…

# create a new, blank backup policy to hold the location information and settings
$tempExPolicy = New-WBPolicy

# vss-full backup will handle log rotation
Set-WBVssBackupOptions -Policy $tempExPolicy -VssFullBackup

$dbBackupTarget = New-WBBackupTarget -NetworkPath $args[0] #get target from command line

Add-WBBackupTarget -Policy $tempExPolicy -Target $dbBackupTarget

$local_hostname = Get-Content env:computername;

# get system-wide active Exchange databases
$activeExDbs = Get-MailboxDatabase | Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus | Where-Object { $_.ActiveCopy -eq $true } | Where-Object { $_.MailboxServer -eq $local_hostname }

# loop through and check to see if the active copy is on this machine, if so, add the
# database and log paths to the backup policy

foreach($activeExDb in $activeExDbs) {

$db_edbfilespec = New-WBFileSpec -FileSpec $db.EdbFilePath;
$db_logfilespec = New-WBFileSpec -FileSpec $db.LogFolderPath;

Add-WBFileSpec -Policy $tempExPolicy -FileSpec $db_edbfilespec;
Add-WBFileSpec -Policy $tempExPolicy -FileSpec $db_logfilespec;

}

# start the backup

Start-WBBackup -Policy $tempExPolicy > $rptfile