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How recovery storage groups operate, Creating a recovery storage group – HP 3PAR Application Software Suite for Microsoft Exchange User Manual

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How Recovery Storage Groups Operate

In previous versions of Exchange Server, a separate Microsoft Active Directory forest needs to be
configured on a recovery server if you want to mount another copy of a production Exchange
database, or to mount a different version of a production Exchange database. With the Recovery
Storage Group feature in Exchange Server, a separate recovery computer is not always required
when you want to recover data from a mailbox store. After you create a Recovery Storage Group,
and one or more databases have been added to it, you can either restore online backup sets, or
you can copy offline database files to the Recovery Storage Group. To extract or to merge data
from recovered databases in the Recovery Storage Group to a mailbox in a regular storage group,
use the Exchange Server version of Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Merge Wizard (Exmerge.exe).

To use a Recovery Storage Group, the Active Directory topology of the Exchange Server computer
must be intact and must be in the same state as when the copy of the database was made. This
means that the mailbox or the mailboxes that you want to recover must not be deleted or purged
from the system, or moved to a different database or to a different server.

The Recovery Storage Group feature is not intended for use in disaster recovery operations that
involve multiple servers or multiple storage groups. It is intended as a substitute in situations where
previously an alternative forest recovery server was required. Use the Recovery Storage Group
feature in recovery situations where both the following conditions are true:

The logical information in Active Directory about the storage group and its mailboxes is intact
and unchanged.

You want to recover data from a single mailbox, a single database, or a group of databases
that are in a single storage group. For example, you can use a Recovery Storage Group to
recover items that were deleted and purged from a user mailbox, or you can use a Recovery
Storage Group to restore or to repair a copy of an alternative database while another copy
of the database remains in production.

Creating a Recovery Storage Group

To create a Recovery Storage Group:
1.

Start the Exchange Management Console.

2.

Select Toolbox on the bottom of the left panel.

3.

Double-click Database Recovery Management in the middle panel.

4.

Select Create a recovery storage group.

5.

For the storage group or mailbox database names, select the same name as the storage group
and mailbox database names to recover.

6.

Select locations to place the recovery storage group files and mailbox database files.

7.

Create recovery storage group.

8.

Mount the virtual copy to restore from to the production server.

9.

Copy the EDB, CHK, and LOG files to the locations selected for the recovery storage group.

10. Rename all the CHK and LOG files to have the same header as the Recovery Storage Group.

For example, if Recovery Storage Group has a header of R00, then rename all E00 headers
to R00.

11. Mount the Mailbox Database from the Troubleshooting Assistant.
12. Select Merge or copy mailbox contents and select the specific actions to perform.

Restoring a Mailbox Store to the Recovery Storage Group

You can restore a mailbox store to a Recovery Storage Group by manually copying the database
files to the appropriate folder on the server.

NOTE:

Keep the original backup file in case you need to start over.

Recovering Data with HP 3PAR Recovery Manager

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