Disaster Recovery Procedures

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 will reach end of support on April 11, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

Applies to: Exchange Server 2007, Exchange Server 2007 SP1, Exchange Server 2007 SP2, Exchange Server 2007 SP3

There are a number of backup, restore, and recovery procedures for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. For a definition of back up, restore, and recovery, see Disaster Recovery Terminology.

The following areas are covered in this section:

• Server recovery and restore   In the event of a server loss, you have options depending on the server role and your disaster recovery plan. Server loss could be caused by software or hardware failure, or by the physical loss of the site where the server was housed. For information about recovering from a server loss, see How to Recover a Lost Exchange Server.

  • Edge Transport server recovery   The Edge Transport server does not rely on a remote copy of Active Directory for storage of its configuration or directory service information. Instead, the Edge Transport server relies on a local copy of Active Directory using Active Directory application mode. Included in the Exchange 2007 installation files is a set of scripts that allow you to back up and restore this information. For more information about how to back up and restore an Edge Transport server, see Using Cloned Configuration Tasks for Edge Transport Server Disaster Recovery.

• Mailbox and public folder database backup, restore, and recovery   The mailbox and public folder databases are the primary storage databases for end-user data in an Exchange organization. Protecting and recovering these databases are some of the primary focuses of disaster recovery planning for Exchange. The following topics explain how to back up, restore, and recover your Exchange data in a variety of situations:

  • Using Backup to Back Up and Restore Exchange Data

  • How to Restore a Streaming Backup to a Different Server

  • How to Restore a Mailbox Database to a New Server with Database Portability

  • How to Rebuild the Full-Text Index Catalog

• Deleted mailbox and deleted item retention   Exchange 2007 supports both deleted mailbox and deleted item retention. Mailboxes and deleted items are, by default, held for a number of days in the database. Covered in the Configuring Deleted Mailbox and Deleted Item Retention section is how to configure these settings and how to restore the deleted objects.

• Recovery storage groups   Recovery storage groups are special administrative storage groups. Use the recovery storage group to recover deleted items or mailboxes from backup when they are no longer in retention. For more information about working with recovery storage groups, see Recovery Storage Groups.

• Queue database on a transport server   In Exchange 2007, all inbound and outbound Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) e-mail messages temporarily travel through an Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) database called mail.que as they are processed by the transport server. Queues exist only on computers that have the Hub Transport server role or Edge Transport server role installed. Working with the Queue Database on Transport Servers provides you with information about how to repair, defragment, and drain the mail.que database.