Recover an Exchange server and data

 

Updated: May 13, 2016

Applies To: System Center 2012 SP1 - Data Protection Manager, System Center Data Protection Manager 2010, System Center 2012 R2 Data Protection Manager

You recovery backed up Exchange data using the DPM Recovery Wizard. You can recover the following: supports recovery of Exchange Server mailboxes through the Recovery Wizard. When you click an Exchange Server database in the Protected data pane in the wizard, DPM displays the mailboxes that belong to that database.

• Recover a single mailbox—DPM can recover a single mailbox. It copies the entire database to do so as recommended by Exchange. See Microsoft support policy for third-party products that modify or extract Exchange database contents. Individual mailbox recovery is done through a recovery database rather than directly to the database that hosted the original mailbox. The recovery database must exist before you can attempt this recovery.

  If you follow best practices, such as keeping deleted items and deleted mailboxes for a period of time, the probability that you have to restore a single mailbox is quite low.

• Recover an Exchange database— You can recover a database by using the "latest" recovery point, resulting in near zero data loss when the recovery is complete.

• Recover an entire Exchange server—You can recover an entire Exchange server if you’ve protected the server with a bare metal backup in addition to protecting the data.

You can restore from the most recent recovery point for near zero data loss, or from any recovery point. If you restore the latest recovery point DPM first restores to the recovery points and then rolls forward the surviving transaction logs beyond that point, as long as you adhere to the best practice of storing Exchange databases on one volume and logs on another. You can restore recovered data to:

• The original location

• A recovery storage group or recovery database

• A separate network folder

• A tape drive

Recover a single mailbox

1. On the protected Exchange server, verify whether you have an existing recovery mailbox database. If you don’t, create one using the New-MailboxDatabase cmdlet. Configure the recovery database so it can be overwritten by using the Set-MailboxDatabase cmdlet. For example:

   New-MailboxDatabase -Recovery -Name RDB-CONTROL -Server E2K13-MBX1  
   

   Set-MailboxDatabase -Identity ‘RDB-CONTROL’ -AllowFileRestore $true  
   

2. In the DPM Administrator Console, go to the Recovery view and navigate to the mailbox database you want to recover (in the All Protectd Exchange Data node).

3. Available recovery points are indicated in bold on the calendar in the recovery points section. Click a date, select a recovery point in Recovery time > Recover.

   Note that you won’t be able to select Latest. This isn’t available for individual mailboxes.

4. In the Recovery Wizard review your recovery selection, and click Next.

5. Specify the type of recovery you would like to perform and click Next.

6. In the Specify Recovery Options page do the following:

   1. Mount the databases after they are recovered. Clear the check box if you don’t want to mount the databases.

   2. Network bandwidth usage throttling. Click Modify to enable throttling.

   3. Click Enable SAN-based recovery using hardware snapshots if applicable.

   4. In Notification click Send an e-mail when the recovery completes, and specify the recipients. Separate the e-mail addresses with commas.

7. On the Summary page review your recovery settings, and click Recover. When the recovery finishes click Close.

   Any synchronization job for the selected recovery item is canceled while the recovery is in progress.

8. After the recovery process has finished, the required mailbox is not quite fully restored. The mailbox database to which the mailbox belongs is only restored to the Recovery mailbox database. Restore the mailbox by running this cmdlet:

   New-MailboxRestoreRequest –SourceDatabase ’RDB-CONTROL’ –SourceStoreMailbox ‘mailbox name’ –TargetMailbox <name>@contoso.com –TargetRootFolder Recovery -SkipMerging StorageProviderForSource  
   

   You must add -SkipMerging StorageProviderForSource to the command; otherwise an error occurs. For a workaround, see Release Notes for Exchange 2013.

   When you now open the mailbox, all its contents until 3:15 PM are located beneath the Recovery folder.

9. After you finished the restore, you can dismount and delete the Recovery Mailbox database by running the following Windows PowerShell cmdlet.

   Remove-MailboxDatabase -Identity ‘RDB-CONTROL’  
   

Recover an Exchange database

• In the DPM Administrator Console, go to the Recovery view and navigate to the mailbox database you want to recover (in the All Protected Exchange Data node).

• Available recovery points are indicated in bold on the calendar in the recovery points section. Click a date, and select Latest to get the newest backup and click Recover.

• In the Recovery Wizard review your recovery selection, and click Next.

• Specify the type of recovery you would like to perform and click Next.

• In the Specify Recovery Options page do the following:

  1. Mount the databases after they are recovered. Select this.

  2. Network bandwidth usage throttling. Click Modify to enable throttling.

  3. Click Enable SAN-based recovery using hardware snapshots if applicable.

  4. In Notification click Send an e-mail when the recovery completes, and specify the recipients. Separate the e-mail addresses with commas.

• You must now return to the Exchange server in order to enable the databases to be overwritten by the restore. If you miss this step, the restore fails. To do this, open the Exchange admin center, navigate to Servers > Databases, select the Exchange mailbox database that you want to be overwritten, and then click Edit.

  Click Maintenance > This database can be overwritten by a restore > Save.

• Back in the Recovery Wizard on the Summary page review your recovery settings, and click Recover. When the recovery finishes click Close.

  Any synchronization job for the selected recovery item is canceled while the recovery is in progress.

• Check your mailbox contents to verify the success of your restore operation. If the recovered mailbox database was part of a Database Availability Group (DAG), the passive copy shows the failed and suspended status.

• To resume normal DAG operations, select the failed database copy, and then click Resume. A dialog box appears prompting you to reseed (or reset) the database. Click Yes.

Recover an entire Exchange server

• In the DPM Administrator Console, go to the Recovery view and navigate to the server you want to recover.

• Available recovery points are indicated in bold on the calendar in the recovery points section. Click a date, and select a recovery point from the list. In the list, right-click Bare Metal Recovery (BMR) and click Recover.

• In the Recovery Wizard review your recovery selection, and click Next.

• In the Select Recovery Type page, select Copy to a network folder to restore the server to a separate network location. Or you can select Copy to tape if you have one available.

• In the Specify Destination page, select where you want to copy the database files. These files can be used to perform the BMR.

• In the Specify Recovery Options page do the following:

  1. Mount the databases after they are recovered. Select this.

  2. Network bandwidth usage throttling. Click Modify to enable throttling.

  3. Click Enable SAN-based recovery using hardware snapshots if applicable.

  4. In Notification click Send an e-mail when the recovery completes, and specify the recipients. Separate the e-mail addresses with commas.

• You can monitor the process on the Monitoring tab. A ‘recovery success’ alert shows when recovery finishes.

  Open the folder where are located recovery files and rename it with a shorter name. This will make the recovery process easier. Create a share in the recovery folder.

• To run the bare metal recovery, insert the ISO of your operating system for boot purposes. Select the Repair option and in Advanced Options, select System Image Recovery.

  In the Re-image your computer wizard, you can ignore any warning about a system image not found.

• In the Select a system image backup page, click Select a system image. Click Advanced to select recovery files from a network share. Select Search for a system image on the network and click Yes if asked if you’re sure you want to connect to the network.

• Specify the network folder, select the backup, and select the date and time of the image you want to restore. Specify any additional driver and disk settings, and then click Finish to start the restore.