Problem : Prior to deployment, an Exchange administrator should already have a
plan to recover in the event of a disaster. What does this mean? What
does Exchange 2007 offer in terms of recovery solutions?
Solution : You can hope for the best, as long as you plan for the worst. In the
world of Exchange 2007, what is the worst? Certainly, in modern times we
have seen situations in which an entire site (with all our servers and
onsite backup data) is lost in a moment. A business can be permanently
ruined by the loss of its data and equally so through the loss of its
mailbox databases.What does an
Exchange administrator need to know to design a solution? To begin with,
it’s good to remember that five server roles (with clustered services
perhaps, or high availability solutions in place) need to be prepared
for in terms of restoring your environment. It’s also important to
consider the solutions that Exchange 2007 offers, such as dial-tone
restores and recovery storage groups. You might want to keep in mind
third-party solutions that can offer you features that Microsoft hasn’t
provided in terms of disaster recovery.
However, you cannot fight
what you cannot see. You need to see the various situations that can
come your way. What if someone simply deletes mail messages? This might
not be a disaster but is a situation that might require you to reach for
your backup tapes. What if a mailbox is deleted? What if a database or
storage group is corrupted? What if the server was literally picked up
and thrown out of a window? (It can happen, and you need to be
prepared!) External services can fail (Active Directory [AD], Domain
Name Service [DNS], and so forth).
What solutions are in place to assist you?
Disaster Recovery Solutions
Keep in mind that fault-tolerant disk solutions and high-availability solutions are not what we are referring to when discussing disaster recovery.
Here are the solutions we are referring to:
Deleted item and deleted mailbox retention
Backup and recovery solutions
VSS backups
Recovery storage groups
Database relocation solutions
Dial-tone recovery
Non-mailbox server restoration
Disaster Readiness
Although
the majority of this book has focused on the step-by-step, “how-to”
aspect of Exchange, preparing for disaster requires a brief step into
the what-if world. It’s true, you hope to never face a major disaster
that forces you to recover your Exchange environment, and you might
spend a great deal of time focusing on the common problems (failed disk,
server crash, and so forth), but in the event you face fire, flood, and
so on, you need to think about the following:
Have a documented
disaster recovery plan for as many different scenarios (mailbox to
entire site) for all of your servers, roles, and certificates (if you
are using Secure Socket Layers [SSL], which you most likely will be) you
can think of. Ensure that document is in multiple locations so you can
access it off-site if needed. Perhaps keep a copy with your off-site
backup solution.
Have
a daily, weekly, and monthly backup plan in place. Whether you back up
to tape, disk and then to tape, to a mirrored location, or to an
Internet site, you must have an off-site location for your backup.
Document
the configuration of each of your servers. Ensure you have the entire
structure on paper for yourself, or the next person who handles the
servers. This includes information such as your mailbox policies,
ActiveSync policies, UM configuration settings, and so forth. Document
as much as possible.
Restoration
drills. It all comes down to if you can fix it if a disaster strikes.
The only way to know is to run drills that put the planning to the test.
Ensure your people know where the documentation server software,
service pack software, Exchange software, hardware replacement
solutions, and so on are located.
