How to restore an Exchange 2007 Mailbox Store from tape using Backup Exec 12
- The Scenario -
You back up your Exchange 2007 mailbox stores with Backup Exec 12 and the Microsoft Exchange Server Agent regularly. You've never actually tried to restore the mailbox store.
The good news...This is not an uncommon scenario, but recovery testing should be an important part of any backup plan, that way, if you ever need to actually perform disaster recovery, you're familiar with the steps. Exchange 2007 has some new features which make this very easy. You can create a Recovery Storage Group (some features available in Exchange 2003 SP1), which will allow you to restore a mail store from tape without affecting your currently mounted mail stores.
- Creating a Recovery Storage Group in Exchange 2007 -
1. Open the Exchange Management Console. From the Toolbox node, click on Database Recovery Management.
2. Enter a descriptive lable for this activity (i.e. "Creating a recovery storage group" at the top, then type the name of your Exchange server and the name of a Domain Controller server in the appropriate fields and then click Next at the bottom of the screen.
3. From the Tasks options, under Manage Recovery Storage Group, click on the Create a Recovery Storage Group
4. You'll need select the original Storage Group that you're trying to recover, Exchange will base the Recovery Storage Group on this selection. Select the Storage Group that you want to restore from and click Next:
5. Next, You'll need to name your new Recovery Storage Group. Once done with that, you can choose the location of the original Storage Group files (DB + Logs), I recommend leaving the default settings.
6. Click "Create the recovery Storage Group"
- Restoring to an Exchange 2007 Recovery Storage Group from Backup Exec 12 -
1. Within Backup Exec, click the Restore button to create a new one-time restore job.
2. Select the specific data that you'd like to restore.
3. Select the "Microsoft Exchange Redirection" section.
4. Choose the "Redirect Exchange Sets" option and enter your Exchange Server name as "\\SERVERNAME", then "Redirect using Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) Snapshot Provider". Now select "Restore to Recovery Storage Group (RSG) (Exchange 2007 Only)"
5. Once you've done this, you can Run the backup job and restore your tape data to the Exchange Server's Recovery Storage Group.
- Restoring Exchange 2007 Mailbox Data from your Recovery Storage Group -
Once you've restored the Backup Exec data to the Exchange 2007 Recovery Storage Group, you can use the Microsoft Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant's Database Recovery Management section to mount your Recovery Storage Group and/or restore mailboxes or the entire Mailbox Store database.
Note: Creating a Recovery Storage Group and recovering data from it can be automated using the Exchange Management Shell. For more information, you can reference the following pages:
How to Recover a Mailbox by Using a Recovery Storage Group
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa997694.aspx