Restoring Exchange data
The Exchange Agent lets you restore Exchange databases as well as individual mailbox items. You can restore items to their original location or you can redirect the restore to a new location.
Note: TheRestore Wizarddisplays only up to 30,000 items. If you want to restore data from a database or mailbox that contains more than 30,000 items, you must search for the item that you want to restore. You can use search criteria such as the type of data and the date of the original backup to help reduce the number of items that display.
The requirements and procedures for restoring Exchange data vary depending on the backup strategy you used. Before you restore Exchange data, you should review the required configuration and tasks.
You can restore Exchange data in the following ways:
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Use the recovery database to recover data from an older backup copy of the store without disturbing client access to current data.
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Restore Exchange data from snapshot backups.
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Restore individual Exchange items from a backup that is enabled for Granular Recovery Technology (GRT).
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Restore Exchange data to a server other than the one from which it was backed up.
This topic includes the following information:
Requirements for restoring Exchange
Review the following before restoring Exchange:
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The databases must already exist on the destination server, and must have the same names as the original databases.
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The destination server must have the same Organization and Administrative Group name as the source server.
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Before you start the restore, configure the destination databases so that they can be overwritten by a restore.
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You cannot restore messages with attachments that contain contact groups and undeliverable reports because Microsoft Exchange Web Services (EWS) for Microsoft Exchange 2013 does not support the restore of distribution lists and message reports when they are attachments. Veritas recommends that you restore messages that contain these types of attachments to a .PST file.
Configuring a destination database for restore data in Exchange
Before you restore Exchange, you should configure the destination database.
To configure a database
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Do one of the following:
For Exchange 2010 Open the Exchange Management Console utility. For Exchange 2013 or later Open the Exchange Admin Center. -
Right-click the database that you want to overwrite.
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Click Properties.
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Do the following:
For Exchange Server 2010 or later On the Maintenance tab, select This database can be overwritten by a restore .
Restore data by using the Exchange Server 2010 or later recovery database
Exchange Server 2010 or later lets you mount a second copy of an Exchange mailbox store on any Exchange Server in the same Exchange Administrative Group as the original while the original store is still running and serving clients. This allows you to recover data from an older backup copy of the store without disturbing client access to current data.
Exchange Server 2010 or later uses recovery databases (RDB). Each server has a recovery database and there cannot be more than one mounted recovery database.
See your Microsoft Exchange documentation for more information about RDBs and recovery databases.
After the RDB is created, you can restore online backup sets to it. Then you can use the version of the Exchange Management Shell in Exchange to extract mailbox data from the stores into .PST files, and optionally merge the extracted data back into the online stores.
If the RDB resides on a different Exchange Server than the databases you are restoring, you should review the requirements for redirecting the restore of Exchange recovery databases.
Following are requirements for restoring data using the Exchange Server 2010 or later recovery database:
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If multiple stores are selected for restore, mailbox stores in the RDB must come from the same database. You cannot add mailbox stores from different databases to the RDB at the same time.
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Public folder stores are not supported for restore using the RDB.
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Do not mount mailbox stores in the RDB before the restore. If you do mount the stores before the restore, then you must dismount them. Select the following option on the database property page in Exchange System Manager:
This database can be overwritten by a restore.
Then, delete any files created in the data path for the RDB and added stores prior to restoring them.
Any files created in the data path for the RDB and added store or stores should be deleted as well, if stores were mounted prior to the restore.
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On the server that hosts the RDB, there must be a database with the same name as the original database for the data you are restoring. If no such database exists on the server, then you can use that name for the RDB when you create it.
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The Active Directory topology of the Exchange system must be intact and in the same state it was in when the backup was made. You cannot restore mailbox stores that were deleted and recreated. In addition, you cannot recover mailboxes from stores if the mailboxes were deleted and purged from the system or moved to other servers or mailbox stores.
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When the RDB exists on a server, the mailbox stores that it contains are the only stores that can be restored on that server by default. Veritas recommends that you create the RDB only when you intend to recover data using it, and remove the RDB from the server after the data recovery is complete.
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You can have more than one recovery database; however, you can only mount one recovery database to recover data.
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Do not mount the recovery database before the restore. If you do mount the recovery database before the restore, you must dismount it. Select the This database can be overwritten by a restore option on the database property page in the Exchange Management Console utility.
Refer to your Microsoft Exchange Server documentation for more information on the requirements and restrictions of recovering Exchange data.
About restoring Exchange data from snapshot backups
Note the following when restoring Exchange data from snapshot backups:
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If circular logging is enabled, only point-in-time, loss restores are possible. Roll-forward, no-loss restores cannot be performed.
Restoring individual Exchange public folder messages from tape by duplicating backup sets
To restore individual public folder messages from tape, you must first duplicate the backup sets that contain the messages to disk storage. You can then restore the data from that disk storage.
The backup that you want to restore from must be a full backup or a copy backup. If there is an incremental or differential backup that is subsequent to the full backup, then you can restore individual items from the incremental or differential backup. The backup sets for the full backup and the incremental or differential backup must be on the same volume.
You cannot restore individual public folder messages from tape if the original backup is an incremental backup.
To restore individual Exchange public folder messages from tape by duplicating backup sets to disk
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Insert the tape containing the required Exchange backup sets into a tape drive.
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Create a duplicate backup sets job.
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After the job completes, run a restore job to restore the individual public folder messages from the Exchange backup sets that are duplicated on the disk storage.
About redirecting Exchange restore data
With Backup Exec, you can restore Exchange data to the server from which it was backed up or redirect the Exchange data to a different location. When redirecting Exchange data, the service pack on the Exchange Server where data is being redirected should be the same as the service pack on the original Exchange Server.
Following are requirements for redirecting Exchange database restores:
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The databases must already exist on the destination server.
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The destination server must have the same Organization Group name as the source server.
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The destination databases must be configured so that they can be overwritten.
You cannot redirect the restore of the following:
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A version of Exchange Server database to a different version of the database. Service packs for both Exchange Servers should also be the same.
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Site Replication Service (SRS) and Key Management Service (KMS). These services are dependent on the computer they reside on; redirection to another computer is not supported and could result in the loss of functionality of these services.Note: KMS is not available in Exchange.
Before starting the redirected restore job, review information on finding and viewing specific data to restore, as well as for details on restore options and submitting restore jobs.
After completing the restore, it is recommended that a full backup of the restored databases be performed.
About redirecting Exchange mailbox items
With Backup Exec, you can restore mailbox items such as mailboxes and public folders to a different mailbox on the same server or to a different location.
You can also restore mailboxes or mailbox items to a .PST, which is a Microsoft Outlook data file that is compatible with Microsoft Outlook 2007 or 2010.
Following are requirements for redirecting Exchange mailbox and public folder items back to Exchange:
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The specified mailbox or public folder store must exist.
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The Backup Exec logon account must have rights to the destination mailbox.
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To overwrite existing public folder data, the logon account must have ownership of the public data. In this rare situation, Veritas recommends that when you restore public folder data, do not use the restore option Overwrite existing mail messages and folders on the Restore wizard panel titled How do you want to restore the items?.
Following are requirements for restoring to a .PST file:
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The Agent for Windows must be installed on the destination server to which you redirect mailbox or public folder items.
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Microsoft Outlook 2007 or 2010 (32-bit only) must be installed on the destination server.Note: The maximum size of the .PST file is 20 GB. If the restore exceeds the size limit, the data is spanned across multiple .PST files which are numbered consecutively.
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