How Exchange Server Recovery Scenarios Get Changed with Newer Editions

Microsoft is another name for Technology. Day-today inventions in technical arena and programming standards have made loads of change in traditional work-pattern. Similarly, if you talk about Microsoft Exchange Server then it’s clearly visible that recovery standards have been updated with the launch of each edition.

Microsoft Exchange server has evolved from a highly complex architecture to a very simple handy technology for all Exchange administrators. This advancement has actually made the Exchange server recovery process a little bit easier.

The recovery of Exchange server is required specially when there is sudden (dirty) shutdown, power failure and improper database mounting or dismounting. At this point, Microsoft Exchange server provides internal methodology named as Recovery Storage Group (RSG) and Recovery Database (RD) for the recovery of database.

Recovery Using Recovery Storage Groups (Valid for 2003 and 2007 Server)

Step 1: Create a Recovery Storage Group
New-StorageGroup -Server excgserver1 -LogFolderPath:"E:\RSG\" – Name RSG SystemFolderPath:"E:\RSG\ -Recovery

Step 2: Create a Recovery Database in the Storage Group
new-mailboxdatabase -mailboxdatabasetorecover excgserver1\SG\DB01 -storagegroup excgserver1\RSG -edbfilepath C:\SG\DB01.edb

Step 3: Set the recovery database to be overwritten by EMS (Exchange Management Shell) using

set-mailboxdatabase -identity excgserver1\SG\DB01 –AllowFileRestore1

Step 4: Select the mailbox to be recovered from DPM and click recover.

Step 5: Restore the selected mailbox by running the given command.

Restore-Mailbox -RSGMailbox -RSGDatabase 'RSG\DB01' -id -TargetFolder

Recovery Using Recovery Database (valid for 2010 and 2013 edition)

Step 1: Create a Recovery Database
New-mailboxdatabase -Name RecDB –EdbFilePath E:\RecDB\DB\DB01.edb –LogFolderPath E:\RecDB\DB\ - Recovery

Step 2: Mount the Recovery Database
Mount-Database RecDB
Step 3: Restore the Mailbox

New-MailboxRestoreRequest –SourceDatabase RecDB SourceStoreMailbox -TargetMailbox

Change in Exchange Server Recovery Standards as per Different Editions:

As per licensing, there are two editions for Exchange server: Standard Edition and Enterprise edition for each server type according to which the internal recovery infrastructure changes. 

Image Credits: www.datarecoveryaid.com

Exchange 2003 Server Recovery Scenarios:

2003 edition is one of the oldest editions, which introduced the concept of Recovery Storage Groups for the first time. Till now there was no scope of recovery once the server is dirty shutdown. In standard edition, create 1 storage group which supports 2 databases and in enterprise edition, create 4 Storage Groups having maximum limit for 5 databases. 

Exchange 2007 Server Recovery Scenarios:
The technical complexities are reduced and scope is enlarged that proves to be a big help. In standard edition, total amount of 5 storage groups and 5 databases per server are available for creation. In Enterprise edition, the limits are extended with 50 Storage Group and 50 databases per server. 

Exchange 2010 Server Recovery Scenarios:

This version further simplifies the entire architecture for Exchange server recovery by eliminating the Storage Groups (RSG) and introducing the Recovery Databases (RD). The standard edition supports creation of 5 Recovery Databases and Enterprise edition extends the count up to 100 Databases.
 
Recovery via DAG (Data Availability Group) – this notion is limited for Exchange 2010 server. This requires a topology of inter-related servers that provides a temporary function to send and receive emails until the actual server. 

Exchange 2013 Server Recovery Scenarios:

Its internal architecture for standard edition is same as of 2010 server. But for Enterprise edition, cumulative update 1 (CU1) supports 50 databases and cumulative update 2 (CU2) supports 100 databases.

Olive Pattionson

About the Author:

Olive Pattionson has been working as Microsoft Exchange Server administrator over a decade. She is interested in finding out the most suitable technology for Exchange Server Recovery even when server is down or crashed.