Restoring Exchange 2010 Database

[EvoTom]

Hi

I'm going through some DR practices for Exchange 2010. I can't seem to find any information on how you would use Veeam to restore a whole mailbox store. What I have tried so far is to dismount the store and rename the .edb file; FLR restore the .edb file from the backup and try to mount the store. This throws an error and then renaming the orignal file back to try and mount also fails because of previous errors (although this will re-mount via command-line with the -Force switch).

Just trying to work out if this would be a realistic DR to recover the database or would it be more likely that you would delete the corrupted database, recreate it and recover the mailboxes from backup into it.

Any thoughts?

[veremin]

Could you elaborate what particular errors you get while trying to restore and, then, mount corresponding .edb file? You should be able to restore the .edb file, as well as, other files without any issues. As an additional option, you can use Instant VM Recovery in order to restore the given Exchange server as a whole.

Thanks.

[EvoTom]

This is our setup:

3 multi role Exchange 2010 servers (mailbox, hub, and transport) in DAC mode
2 on the primary site and 1 on DR site
All three are a member of a single DAG with database activation Disabled on the exchange server on the DR site

We backup the two primary Exchange servers using Veeam and on that site and we are trying to restore a EDB to one of these servers after removing it from that server. So for a test we created a new Mailbox Store DB called DR_test. We added a mailbox to this and sent it some mail. Next we dismounted it and renamed the .edb file. We then tried to restore the EDB file from the Veeam backup and then remount the store. This is where we get an error (possibly because Exchange see's it as an older file than the one we renamed).

Can get the exact error if needed.

We are also trying a different DR scenario where we are bringing up the 2 primary server vms on to a test network (along with required infrastucture: dns,ad etc) but this is also failing (I think due to the clustering).

[foggy]

I don't think you can simply FLR the single .EDB file and mount it to the live Exchange server without the corresponding transaction logs. The DB in this case would be in a "dirty shutdown" state and you would need to repair it (using eseutil or smth).

[EvoTom]

So if I restore the transaction logs from the same backup then I should be able to mount it?

[foggy]

Yes, in case the database is consistent with the logs.

[nashwa]

hi I have the same issue that I can't find documentation regarding recovering a database from veeam ,so did it work Evo Tom ,when restoring logs

[aalmassud]

It's basically done like with NT Backup where you restore the dump file like anything else and then you struggle to figure out what transaction logs to restore for this database to mount.

I can't believe this!!!!

[Dima P.]

Hi guys,

Application item recovery from Exchange backup is quite easy, you just need to launch Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Exchange. To get more information regarding application item recovery and Veeam Explorers, kindly, take a look at Veeam Backup Explorers User Guide. Thank you!