The backup functionality is the same across all Exchange and Domino back ends with the exception that Domino does not provide a mechanism for including subscriber messages in the backup as Exchange does.  Outside of that the procedures are all identical.

First, decide where you want the backup files to go.  In general if you are backing up to a remote server on the network you will want to use the full UNC path to the share on that server, not a mapped drive letter.  This is necessary if the box is in another domain or if you are running the backup via a Windows Terminal Services session or the like.  A mapped drive letter will work in many cases however a UNC path is safer and should always work.  Backing up to a local drive is generally going to defeat the purpose of the tool if you experience a complete system failure of your Unity server (i.e. a fire breaks out or a big electromagnet gets accidentally applied to the side of the server).  See the “Using the ‘Two Hop” SQL Backup Method” for more on this.

Be sure you’ve allocated enough space for the backup files.  Remember this includes all greeting and voice name files which can be rather large.  Check the size of your \Commserver\StreamFiles directory to get a ballpark for this.  The SQL table for Unity is also included, of course, so leave yourself ample cushion.  To get a rough idea of how much space the SQL table will take you can check the \Commserver\UnityDB.BAK file.  

NOTE: If you’ve selected to backup subscriber messages for your Exchange based system, you need much more space reserved and it’s difficult to estimate how much you will need.  See the “Space needed for subscriber messages” section below for more details on this.

You will need to run the Disaster Recovery Backup tool logged in as an account that has administration rights to SQL and, if you’ve selected to backup messages, an account that has Exchange Service account rights.  This is much trickier than it sounds and will not be the case for any account you may have used to install Unity since it would have been a member of the Domain Admins group which is explicitly denied this right in Exchange.  Please see the Configuring Permissions for DiRT section for details on how to go about this.  Once you’ve launched the application, you need only use the “Browse” button to indicate where you want the backup files written and hit the “backup” button.  The progress is indicated by the checkboxes next to each task as it’s undertaken.  

When the backup is complete you’re given an error count and you have the opportunity to review the log file created by the export.  A new log is created for each backup run and the logs are kept around for 20 days.  You can view the backup log file at any time by selecting the “View Backup Logs” item in the Options menu.  The files are backed up “raw”, they are not all compressed into a binary file or a database.  You can browse through the target backup directory and fish out specific greetings, voice names, switch configuration file, registry settings etc… if you need to.

The backup directory will be remembered so the next time you run the utility it’ll have that field filled in automatically.  This value is also used when running in “silent” mode for schedule backups.  See the “Scheduling Backups” section for more on that.