Be prepared for disaster |
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By Mike Daugherty
14 Jun 2004 | SearchExchange.com |
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The following is tip #3 from "12 ways to protect your Exchange 2003 data," excerpted
from Mike Daugherty's new book, Monitoring & Managing Microsoft Exchange Server 2003,
reprinted with permission of Digital Press, an imprint of Elsevier, copyright 2004. For more
Information, please visit www.elsevier.com. Return to the main page for more tips on this
topic.
If you have regularly backed up your Exchange databases and other critical files, you can
quickly restore them if data becomes corrupted. If one of your servers fails or is
physically damaged, the recovery process is more complex and requires more preparation. You
should prepare for this worst-case situation by creating and maintaining a disaster recovery
toolkit containing the following items:
- A replacement server with the same configuration as the failed production server
- Windows installation CD-ROM
- Exchange Server installation CD-ROM
- All Service Packs and hot fixes that you have applied to the system
- An up-to-date full backup of your system drive (i.e., the drive where Windows is
installed)
- An up-to-date full backup of the Windows System State; a System State backup includes
the registry, Internet Information Server metabase, and COM registrations
- An up-to-date full backup of the Windows and Exchange configuration data. Configuration
data include settings for administrative groups, servers, security, and virtual servers.
Configuration data are stored in the Active Directory and the registry
- An up-to-date full backup of the Exchange Information Store databases
- Written procedures for recovering a mailbox, restoring a database, and rebuilding an
Exchange server after a disaster
Collecting and maintaining this list of CD-ROMs, backup media, and procedures is only the
first step toward being prepared for disaster. The second, and equally important, step is to periodically practice recovering mailboxes,
restoring databases, and rebuilding servers. In the midst of a disaster is not the time to
be testing your procedures for the first time. When a disaster strikes, you should already be
comfortable with the recovery process. Remember that your users cannot send or receive
e-mail during the recovery process. Unless you enjoy responding to impatient users, you
should do everything possible to ensure that the recovery process will be quick and
painless. Having practiced the recovery process also will allow you to make confident
predictions on how soon the server will be available.
Get more "12 ways to protect your Exchange 2003 data," Return to the main
page.
About the author: Mike Daugherty is Manager of the Microsoft Consulting
Resource Unit for the Central Region as well as a Senior Solution Architect and Program
Manager with HP Consulting and Integration Services. He travels widely, working with
large Exchange installations and helping clients manage their systems. He is
based in Texas.
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