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Here's a typical way to use snapshots for Microsoft Exchange 2000/2003. This configuration allows an Exchange administrator to restore the entire Exchange environment, individual mailboxes or even individual messages (using third-party software).
The Exchange server is connected to a storage array using Fibre Channel (FC) or iSCSI, and has the ability to make snapshots of existing logical unit numbers (LUNs) available to other hosts. Nightly, software on the Exchange server creates a differential or full-copy snapshot. Once this process completes, the Exchange server or another host runs ESEFILE.EXE against the snapshot of the Exchange database to verify that it's free of corruption. Verification requires considerable host CPU resources and generates significant I/O on the storage. For large Exchange databases, it may make sense to offload this process to another server. The I/O load will determine whether to use differential or full-copy snapshots. Using a differential snapshot for the verification process will impact the performance of the production data, since most of the data blocks referenced by the differential snapshot will be in the production LUN.
The Mailbox/message recovery server is used to restore individual user mailboxes or individual messages from the snapshot. There are many tools that provide this ability, including CommVault Systems Inc.'s Galaxy Backup & Recovery for Microsoft Exchange 2000/2003, Kroll Ontrack Inc.'s PowerControls and Quest Software Inc.'s Recovery Manager for Exchange. All of these tools allow for the recovery of individual messages and mailboxes from a snapshot without having to use a recovery server.
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