Test Restore of Exchange DBs with the MS-Exchange plugin of NetBackup 6

Solution 1:

It's not clear from your posting what version of NetBackup you're using so I can't necessarily give you step-by-step instructions.

The "magic words" you're looking for, in terms of Exchange terminology, are "Recovery Storage Group" (RSG). RSG's were a new feature in Exchange 2003 and allow you to restore a copy of a database (public or private store) onto the same or another Exchange Server computer in the same organization while that server continues to operate in a production capacity. Once an RSG is restored into and mounted up you can connect to it with ExMerge and read out mailboxes into PST files for merging back into a "live" store.

A rough overview of the procedure is as follows:

• Create an RSG on an Exchange Server computer by right-clicking the server and choosing "New / Recovery Storage Group..." in Exchange System Manager.

• Put the RSG on disks with enough space to handle the restored database.

• Choose the database that will be restored into the RSG (through the "Add Database to Recover" action in Exchange System Manager).

• DO NOT SET THE CHECKBOX ON THE PRODUCTION STORE THAT ALLOWS IT TO BE OVERWRITTEN BY A RESTORE! This interlock prevents the restore that you will run in NetBackup from overwriting the production store!

• In NetBackup, perform a restore of the Exchange database back to the original location (if you've created the RSG on the server where the data was originally located), or redirect it to another server if you've staged the RSG there

A step-by-step for several versions of NetBackup, albeit not very detailed, is here: http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/281259.htm

It's always a bit of a white-knuckle moment for me when I do one of these, even when I know I've set everything up properly. Having said that, I've done this procedure with Backup Exec several times with success each time. Obviously, your mileage may vary-- test the heck out of this in a lab before you go touching production data with it.

Solution 2:

Follow Method 3 of this KB article to test a restoration of the exchange store. The problem with just restoring to a different path (and I doubt it's possible) is that you can't mount it to see if it works. building a recovery server will let you do a full restore test. See also this webcast: TechNet Webcast: Exchange Server 2003—Recovery and Preparedness Strategies—Level 200