Best practice:How to restore a server in an Exchange DAG ?

[leedh]

Hi,
We have 2 servers (EXCH1 and EXCH2) in a DAG (1 physical site / Exchange 2010 SP1 / Win 2008 R2 SP1 environment)
EXCH1: MBX1 (active), MBX2 (active), MBX3 (passive), MBX4 (passive)
EXCH2: MBX1 (passive), MBX2 (passive), MBX3 (active), MBX4 (active)

EXCH1 fails .. catastrophic Windows error, so all active databases on EXCH1 failover to EXCH2. I need to restore from a Veeam backup EXCH1.

What is the best way of doing the restore. My concerns are:
1. Once restored, since at the time of the backup/crash MBX1 & MBX2 were active on EXCH1. Once restored will it know to become passive and leave EXCH2 running all the Active databases ? If that's the case would reseeding need to be done manually ?
2. Will EXCH1 automatically resync up with EXCH2 ?

Am I barking up the wrong tree ? Should I re-install Windows and then rebuild the DAG from scratch ie. Don't use Veeam ?

Any guidance would be appreciated.
Thanks, Lee

[pwinterbourne]

Hi,

Thats a serious question

See this link it will help...

http://smtpport25.wordpress.com/2010/12 ... fail-back/

Especially the part on server failure/failback. Basically if you restore your exch1 then boot it up, it will not automatically failback. It *should* get back in sync and eventually say "healthy" in the DB area. Then you can failback manually