Microsoft Exchange Recovery Storage Group Support

Microsoft Exchange and SQL

Retrospect includes support for the Microsoft Exchange Recovery Storage Group, also known as the Recovery Database. The recovery database allows you to restore your Exchange database into a special location on your live production server without overwriting the active Exchange databases. Once you have restored your database to the Recovery Database you can use the Exchange Management Shell to restore individual mailboxes to any specific mailbox on the exchange server.

Details on how to create a Recovery Database are outlined on Microsoft’s website at:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee332321%28v=exchg.141%29.aspx

Once you create the Recovery Database on your exchange server, you can use Retrospect to perform the restore from the backup.

Note: Make sure the Recovery database is NOT mounted before you begin the restore.  

When doing the restore of a mailbox database, you first select the source database you would like to restore. When picking the destination, you select the Exchange Server itself.

During the restore, your Exchange Server (not Retrospect) will automatically replace the appropriate database using the rules below:

If the Recovery Database is correctly enabled, then Exchange should automatically overwrite the Recovery database during the restore operation and not your live exchange database.

You can make sure the live database does not accidentally get overwritten by making sure the option "This database can be overwritten by a restore" is deselected. You can find this option in the Exchange Management Console under Organization Configuration, Mailbox, properties of the Database, Maintenance.

After you complete the restore of the database into the recovery database, you can use the Power Management Shell to recover individual mailboxes. Microsoft outlines the commands in these articles:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb125218%28v=exchg.141%29.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff829875%28v=exchg.141%29.aspx

Important Note

Microsoft does not allow the restore to the Recovery Storage Group if the source storage group contains public folders. Only mailbox databases are supported. For most users the First Storage Group contains public folders, eliminating the ability to restore the First Storage Group to the Recovery Storage Group. If you wish to use the recovery storage group, you should transfer your mailbox database to a new storage group that does not contain public folder data. Microsoft website provides documentation on Moving mailbox databases to another storage group.

For specific details on configuring and using the Recovery Storage Group in Exchange 2007, you can visit

Also see:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124039(EXCHG.80).aspx

Last Update: February 7, 2013