Exchange Question

[defrogger]

Hi I have a question that might be more of an Exchange question than a vmware question. I have a couple clients that im trying to convince to use Vmware essentials plus. Some have Exchange 2003 and some have 2007.

The plan for the Exchange VM would be to setup 2 seperate Virtual Disks, one for the C drive where the operating system and Exchange will be installed. The other disk will be for the D drive where i would put the Exchange transaction logs and the Exchange Data Folders.

Lets say I got a virus on the Exchange VM and it infected the server 4 days ago, or for some other reason the C drive gets corrupt.

Can I just use a backup from the Data Recovery Appliance from say 5 Days ago and just replace the Virtual Disk that contains the C Drive?

In theory my Data drive would still be current so no one would loose any emails.

Is it that Simple? Or will Exchange Freak out that the C drive has files that are 5 days older than the Data?

Hopefully that made sense.

Thanks

Mike

[khughes]

I can't tell you a yes or a no on your question but my gut says that sounds like it could lead to an unhealthy exchange server which issues down the road of corrupt files looking for system data that was there and now might have changed. A lot has to do with how your backups are done, and I know this is in theory but a Virus running on your exchange for 4 days seems like a very very long time to go un-noticed.

In that situation I would restore the whole VM to the point before the virus and then restore the exchange logs to bring the mailboxes up to date. That would seem like the cleanest way of doing things, might not be as fast as your idea but with exchange and it getting finiky, I would select the longer / cleaner / safer way going about things.

• Kyle

[defrogger]

Yeah a virus for 4 days unoticed is a long time, but clients tend to wait till things are an emergency before calling in the IT consultant. LOL

I see what your saying on the doing a restore instead. But lets say the Exchange server wont boot for whatever reason and its software related. Rather than take the time to try and figure out why, I just want to restore my last backup of the VM.

I run backups at night, so lets say the problem happens after a full days work and before the nightly backup kicks off. I now have a backup of my VM's that are a day old and lets say I have Symantec Backup Exec backing up my Exchange data as well at night.

My users dont want to loose there email for that day. So I was hoping it would just be as simple as restoring the C drive of my Exchange server.

Anyone know if that would actually work?

Thanks

Mike

[renegadeZA]

You will be able to restore if you have your Logs, you can restore the Information store from 5 days ago and then eseutil the logs back into exchange,

But to make exchange fast for reading - make sure the data is on a raid 10 volume and the logs on raid 5, it makes a big difference in speed, the users will notice.

Kind Regards

Gareth Ray Smith

Comptia A+ | Comptia N+ | CCNA |NES |HP ACT | EE N3 | MCP | MCTSx5 | MCITPx2 | SCS | VCP

3 | VCP 4 | KLDST

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[defrogger]

Ok lets see if this is right. So in the above scenario my Exchange server isnt booting and my backup is atleast 1 day old. However lets assume the D drive which contains the Exchange Data folders and the Transaction logs fine and current.

I would first restore my Virtual disk C drive using the Data Recovery Appliance. Exchange will now hopefully boot, but maybe there will be some errors. I could then turn off the services in Exchange and make a copy of the Transaction log folder just in case.

Whats the next step?

a. Use the the Eseutil Recovery mode and just play the current logs into the data store and everything will work from here.

or do I have to first

b. Restore the Virtual disk D drive containing the old Data and logs. Then turn off the Exchange services, copy the current transaction logs that I backed up. Then run Eseutil Recovery mode and play the current logs into the data store.

Or are neither right?

Thanks again

Mike

[khughes]

If it was just the OS that was corrupted, then (as long as you had separate VMDK files <-- please do this) you would still be able to just attach that data drive to a different VM, or if you used Workstation 7, map the vmdk file and pull the data/log files off that drive. Then you could restore your Exchange from backup, copy the logs back over to your restored exchange and start the recovery process for the logs.

• Kyle

[renegadeZA]

B. is correct, worked many times for me.

Why dont you split the san into 2 raid 5 and raid 10, depending in the number of disks and the sizes

Kind Regards

Gareth Ray Smith

Comptia A+ | Comptia N+ | CCNA |NES |HP ACT | EE N3 | MCP | MCTSx5 | MCITPx2 | SCS | VCP

3 | VCP 4 | KLDST

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[defrogger]

Ide love to seperate the Data and the logs onto seperate raid 10 and 5, but that would require getting 2 Sans, most of my clients wont be able to afford that. For now I was planning on 1 SAN and using Raid 10

[mjpagan]

Most SANs that are worth the money can do multiple RAID types in one chassis. For Example the IBM DS3200 has capacity for 12 drives and you could do 6 drives in RAID10 and 6 in a RAID5.

Also to the Exchange backup question. Buy a backup product like Backup Exec. It is worth the money and will do quality backups of your server.

Mike P

MCSE, VCP3/4

[Josh26]

Also to the Exchange backup question. Buy a backup product like Backup Exec. It is worth the money and will do quality backups of your server.

Mike P

MCSE, VCP3/4

I think that's the key.

Regardless of what you can do with VMWare, any discussion around calling it a DR technique is a hack-job.