Jump to content

Exchange Agent


Recommended Posts

Here are my thoughts on this product:

 

 

 

1. Biggest limitation *by far* (in my opinion) is that the restore has to be done on the SAME server - you cannot create a "recovery" server in a separate domain (believe me, I know - I wasnt' aware of this & wasted a whole weekend trying to install it on a "recovery server" (as recommended by Microsoft - as that *IS* the BEST way for this software to operate - especially if you only need to recover one mailbox or certain files.

 

 

 

2. Second shortcoming is it only restores at the postoffice level - this is a much greater shortcoming because of #1 above. Most times you are not trying to recover the whole post office - someone just screwed up their mailbox - or accidentally delete messages & don't discover it in time - before the system permanently deletes it...To Dantz's defense - they are working on getting a "brick-layer" (mailbox) recovery agent...

 

 

 

3. I couldn't get the database to restore if there was an existing database. So - stop the Exchange Info Store service (if running), delete ALL files under the \mdbdata folder (may be more than one, depending upon drive structure on the Exchange server - usually found under \exchsrvr\mdbdata but may also be found under \program files\exchsrvr\mdbdata. Instead of deleting these files, you may want to rename the directory mdbdata.old (or similar) and then creating a new mdbdata folder - that way you can reverse course if you have to - reversing seems quite easy to do - as long as the files are intact.

 

 

 

4. You have to restore the files back to the EXACT location they were backed up from - if, when you rebuilt the server, you don't have the same drive letters, etc. You're DEAD - start over - or add more drives & start the Exchange portion over! Again, they want the machine in the EXACT state it was in when it was backed up . . . Not *too* much to ask for - except registry info & active directory are a BEAR to get to work right after reinstall.

 

 

 

5. OK - here is where it gets weird. After you have stopped the service, renamed & recreated the directories - reboot. When it gets done rebooting, reinstall Exchange Server with the /disasterrecovery tag. DO NOT REBOOT or try to restart Exchange - let it do its own thing! Now install the latest service pack you originally had installed (remember - exact state as it was before). Now restore the files from tape to the location they were backed up to - the Exchange Agent does an "on-line" backup of the files - but now while you are backing up the system - I have the Exchange Agent set to run at 6:00 p.m. every night - and to do a FULL BACKUP as well (if you do "incremental", you have to deal with all of the .log files & possibly a LOT of other problems - while a full backup takes longer, much higher success rate). Go thru the "restore" procedures. Most likely, it will fail - usually with the same error code (I'll see if I get it again tonight when I restore), when it fails, repeat the entire step 5 again, and it usually works. Don't ask me why - or how I figured it out - but it works. And if you screw up ANYTHING along the way, you are repeating step 5 EXACTLY *TWO* more times! :-)

 

 

 

Rich Logan

 

IS Manager

 

Stokes Lawrence, P.S.

 

(206) 892-2154

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We enable the Microsoft Exchange API to back up the needed Exchange components for a database restore, and then we restore using the same API.

 

 

 

When you use the Microsoft API to back up Exchange, you end up with a bunch of different datafiles. The aggregate of all those files, replaced in the correct way, by the Microsoft Exchange API, will result in a consistent fully working database. We don't attempt to perform any additional modification or manipulation of the files, we simply capture them to a selected location, from which we can back them up. To restore the Exchange database you first restore the datafiles to a hard disk, then startup our Exchange Agent, which using the Microsoft Exchange API, takes the files and replaces them in the correct order. This leaves you, by Microsoft's designed strategy, with a fully functional Exchange database. If missing, users may also need to restore the Registry and Windows directory for Exchange to function correctly.

 

 

 

If you do not back up the Exchange Server's system drive along with the drive containing the Exchange server, and the drive containing your Exchange Agent backups, you will not be able to restore in case of a disaster. This is because an Exchange Server database can only be restored to the actual server it was backed up from. With a rebuilt system, the restored files may not function correctly because the original Registry is gone.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually, one of the *Microsoft* solution is to restore to a "recovery" server in a totally separate domain - it can't even be in the same forest (have the Q article at work - but am working from home). Again, especially when only restoring a small part of the mail system, such as a mailbox. I know that you currently do not support this in theory - but in practical application, one would think that is the MAIN need of your customer...NOT to restore an entire postoffice - that is a "minimally acceptable solution" - not either an optimal or recommended solution.

 

 

 

According to Microsoft, Exchange 2000 only cares about these things:

 

 

 

Organization name

 

Administrative group name

 

Storage group name

 

Logical database name

 

LegacyExchangeDN names on critical system objects

 

 

 

Notice that *none* of them have to deal with domain name or server name - so, in theory, you SHOULD be able to take a backup of the exchange server database to ANY machine so as it is configured with the above parameters - I can tell you from experience that the Retrospect Exchange Agent doesn't allow it - after rebuilding the original mail server, I was going to use Microsoft's Exchange backup tool to see if I could move it to another domain set up with the same parameters as above, but I am STILL in disaster recovery mode - recovering & moving mailboxes from one server to another...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...