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Exchange 2013 public folders

manatee
Level 6

NBU 7.6.0.3

i have been making backups of my DAG for several months now since we upgraded to Exchange 2013. today, there is a need to restore the contents of the public folders but when i try to do a restore, all i can see are my Exchange databases. where are the public folders? how to restore their contents?

 

10 REPLIES 10

Lowell_Palecek
Level 6
Employee

There's no such thing as a public folder database in Exchange 2013. You have public folder mailboxes in your mailbox databases.

Are you trying to restore public folder items (GRT), or entire databases?  If GRT, are you browsing in the primary hierarchy public folder mailbox, or in a secondary PF mailbox?

SplashMasterson
Level 4
Certified

How are your exchange backup policy targets configured?

Please run the following from 'admincmd'

bppllist <exchange_policy_name> -L

 

 

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

You maybe want to discuss backup strategy with your Exchange Admin?

Google found this (although not for NBU, the intro is applicable for all backup products):

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/exchange/2013/08/23/recovering-public-folder-information-in-exch...

In Microsoft Exchange 2013, Public Folders were re-engineered using mailbox infrastructure to take advantage of the existing high availability and storage technologies of the mailbox database. Public folder architecture uses specially designed mailboxes to store both the public folder hierarchy and the content. This also means that there’s no longer a public folder database. High availability for the public folder mailboxes is provided by a database availability group (DAG). To learn more about the general architecture about the public folders please visit the blog post: Public folders in the new Office.

We are currently seeing that customers have started using and taking the advantage of the new public folders feature in Microsoft Exchange 2013. Since the public folders have been re-designed, it becomes very important to plan for recovery of deleted data as well.

You need to consider GRT if you are not doing it already. 

 

i would like to do a GRT restore since i'm interested in the PDF contents of my PF.

i'm afraid i'm not sure what you mean by "in GRT" since i use BAR to select what to restore. i only see my mailbox databases.

here is the output:

[root@ovmmanager admincmd]# ./bppllist Daily_Exchange_DAG -L

Policy Name:       Daily_Exchange_DAG
Options:           0x0
template:          FALSE
audit_reason:         ?
Names:             (none)
Policy Type:       MS-Exchange-Server (16)
Active:            yes
Effective date:    12/12/2012 15:51:05
Mult. Data Stream: no
Perform Snapshot Backup:   yes
Snapshot Method:           VSS
Snapshot Method Arguments: prov_type=0,max_snapshots=1,snap_attr=0,method=VSS
Perform Offhost Backup:    no
Backup Copy:               0
Use Data Mover:            no
Data Mover Type:           2
Use Alternate Client:      no
Alternate Client Name:     (none)
Use Virtual Machine:      0
Hyper-V Server Name:     (none)
Enable Instant Recovery:   no
Policy Priority:   8
Max Jobs/Policy:   Unlimited
Disaster Recovery: 0
Collect BMR Info:  no
Keyword:           (none specified)
Data Classification:       Gold
Residence is Storage Lifecycle Policy:    yes
Client Encrypt:    no
Checkpoint:        no
Residence:         Daily_Policy
Volume Pool:       Daily
Server Group:      *ANY*
Granular Restore Info:  no
Exchange Source passive db if available: yes
Exchange DAG Preferred Server: mb01
Application Discovery:      no
Discovery Lifetime:      0 seconds
ASC Application and attributes: (none defined)
Generation:      65
Ignore Client Direct:  yes
Enable Metadata Indexing:  no
Index server name:  NULL
Use Accelerator:  no
Client/HW/OS/Pri/DMI/CIT:  dag01 Windows-x64 Windows2008 0 1 0 0 ?
Include:           Microsoft Exchange Database Availability Groups:\
Schedule:              Full
  Type:                FULL SExchange (0)
  Frequency:           1 day(s) (86400 seconds)
   Excluded Dates----------
      No specific exclude dates entered
      No exclude days of week entered
      Last day of month excluded
  Retention Level:     0 (1 week)
  u-wind/o/d:          0 0
  Incr Type:           DELTA (0)
  Alt Read Host:       (none defined)
  Max Frag Size:       0 MB
  PFI Recovery:        0
  Maximum MPX:         1
  Number Copies:       1
  Fail on Error:       0
  Residence:           (specific storage unit not required)
  Volume Pool:         (same as policy volume pool)
  Server Group:        (same as specified for policy)
  Residence is Storage Lifecycle Policy:         0
  Schedule indexing:   0
  Daily Windows:
   Day         Open       Close       W-Open     W-Close
   Sunday      000:00:00  000:00:00
   Monday      000:00:00  047:55:00   024:00:00  071:55:00
   Tuesday     000:00:00  000:00:00
   Wednesday   000:00:00  000:00:00
   Thursday    000:00:00  000:00:00
   Friday      000:00:00  047:55:00   120:00:00  167:55:00
   Saturday    000:00:00  000:00:00

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified
You need a GRT (Granular Recovery Technology) backup in order to perform a GRT restore. Requirements and configuration is documented in NBU for Exchange Admin Guide and various TNs such as this one: http://www.veritas.com/docs/000068163

i have GRT enabled for Exchange. i can restore mail item. my problem is when i'm in BAR restore, i can only see my mailbox databases but not the public folder.

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

"... i have GRT enabled for Exchange..."

Seems not:

Granular Restore Info:  no

 

Rino, you seem to be missing the point. You don't have a public folder database in Exchange 2013. Public folders are kept in special public folder mailboxes. Enable GRT, and you should be able to see all your mailboxes in the BAR GUI browse, including your PF mailboxes.

I have a bit of advice for your PF folders.  Don't cross mailboxes with your folder hierarchies.  If you want to keep the content for folder X in PF mailbox M, make sure that the entire hierarchy above X also is in mailbox M.  If you already have the hierarchies and mailboxes cross-wired, I can give you PowerShell syntax to straighten it out.

t_jadliwala
Level 4
Partner Accredited

Follow  the below article in order to configure the exchange grt backups 

https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.HOWTO73076