VIDEO: NetBackup Support Screencast Demo: Restoring Exchange 2010 Database Availability Group (DAG) Backups to a Recovery Database (RDB) using NetBackup

The video linked to is a part of the NetBackup Support Screencast Demo Video series.  It demonstrates Restoring Exchange Database Availability Group (DAG) Backups to a Recovery Database (RDB) using NetBackup. The steps remains the same for Exchange version 2010 and above.  

 

 

TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO:

 

Welcome to the NetBackup Support Screencast Demo Video series.

 

These videos deliver how to demonstrations in a variety of NetBackup functions.

 

They assume fundamental NetBackup knowledge.

 

If you need basic NetBackup training, please go to https://education.Veritas.com where you will be able to find a listing of instructor-led classroom training as well as self-paced computer-based courses for NetBackup.

 

This video is Restoring Exchange 2010 Database Availability Group (DAG) Backups to a Recovery Database (RDB) using NetBackup 7.0

 

For this demonstration, we will be using a master/media server running NetBackup 7.0.1 on Windows 2003 R2 SP2, and an Exchange 2010 DAG member, running NetBackup 7.0 on Windows 2008 R2 SP2.

 

This video does not apply to:

Exchange 2003

Exchange 2007

NetBackup versions lower than 7.0

 

Creating the Recovery Database (RDB) in Exchange

To start, we need to work on the Exchange mailbox server to create the Recovery database we will be using for the restore. We open the Exchange Management Shell and create the Recovery database with the following New-MailboxDatabase command:

 

New-MailboxDatabase -Recovery -Name <name of RDB> -Server <ServerName>

 

We are calling the Recovery database "RDB" and specifying the mailbox server. The database and log file paths will use the Exchange mailbox server default settings. 

 

In the Exchange Management Console, we click on Organization Configuration, and then Mailbox. Under the Database Management tab, then the Database Copies tab we see the Recovery database, RDB, in a dismounted state. We may need to click Refresh under Actions for the newly created recovery database to show up. 

 

The flag for the This database can be overwritten by a restore setting should already be set for the recovery database, but we can confirm this by clicking on the recovery database, and then clicking Properties under Actions. Under the Maintenance tab we see the checkbox for the setting is checked. We can click Cancel to exit the Properties dialog as no changes have been made. No other steps should be required, and Exchange is now ready for the restore.

 

Specifying the DAG restore in NetBackup

After preparing the client, we will bring up the master/media server for this demonstration and go into the Backup, Archive, Restore (or BAR) GUI. 

 

We start by going to the File menu and click on Specify NetBackup Machines and Policy Type. In the resulting window, we set the source to be the Exchange 2010 DAG name and destination to be the Exchange 2010 mailbox server that we are restoring to. We also set the Policy Type to be MS-Exchange-Server. We could also perform the restore using the BAR GUI on the mailbox server we are restoring to. We would just need to make sure the mailbox server host has permission to browse the backup images under the DAG name. We click OK on the Specify NetBackup Machines and Policy Type window.

 

Specifying the NetBackup images to restore

Next, we click on the Select for Restore button. Initially, we see the backup images in a Timeline view. It doesn’t provide much information about each backup, fulls are green and differentials are blue. It is recommended that you go to the View menu and deselect the Show NetBackup History as a Timeline setting as we are doing here to get more information about each backup, including the specific time backed up. 

 

To select multiple images for restore, we click on the full backup we want to restore and then, holding down the <shift> key, we select the differential image up through which we want to restore. This will select the full image and all differential images we want to restore through.

 

Next, in the All Folders pane in the BAR GUI, we drill into the Information Store and click on the database that we want to restore. Then, in the lower right-hand pane, we click the checkboxes for the database and log files we want to restore. 

 

Differential backups will back up the transaction logs and then truncate. Thus, they only contain the logs since the most recent full or differential backup. This is why we selected 2 log file backups in addition to the logs from the full backup, because each one was a differential backup and truncated the log after it was complete. 

 

No cumulative backups are shown here, but note that they do not truncate logs. Because of this, they contain all log files since the last full backup. They have the disadvantage of each successive cumulative backup being larger because it includes all logs since the last full, whether those logs had been backed up before or not. However, the benefit is that in a restore, you only need to select the full backup and the most recent cumulative backup.

 

Setting the Restore Options in NetBackup

Once we've marked all the files we want restored, we click on the second icon down on the left-hand toolbar, which is the Start Restore of Marked Files. This brings up the Restore Marked Files dialog. We click on the Microsoft Exchange tab. We see two options for replaying log files, Roll-Forward Recovery and Point-in-time recovery. With the Point in Time recovery option, only the logs being restored are replayed. The Roll-Forward recovery option will replay all restored logs, but will then continue with rolling forward any other log files that may exist on the system since logs were last truncated. Since we are restoring to a RDB, there will be no other log files on the Exchange server to roll forward, so we will do just a Point-in-time recovery.

 

The Temporary location for log files setting is unavailable, as it is unnecessary for an Exchange 2010 database restore.

 

We see a Dismount database prior to restore option. The Recovery Database is dismounted by default, so this option should remain deselected. Please note that anytime a database needs to be dismounted, it is recommended that dismounting be done from either the Exchange Management Console or Exchange Management Shell. This ensures that the correct database is dismounted. Using the option here only, could result in the wrong database being dismounted and overwritten, if the restore does not use the intended database destination.

 

The next two options are Commit after last backup set is restored, which tells Exchange to recover the database after we restore the full and all log files, and Mount Database after restore, which will actually mount the database after it is recovered. These are both selected by default. However, please check with your Exchange Administrator to ensure they are appropriate actions at the end of your restore. 

 

The last option, Redirect to Recovery Storage Group (Only for Exchange 2007), as the name implies, is only for Exchange 2007; so we will leave it unchecked.

 

Next, we select on the General tab. Since we are restoring to an RDB, we need to select the 2nd radio button, Restore everything to a different location (maintaining existing structure). In the Destination setting, we need to change the directive to Microsoft Information Store:\ followed by the recovery database name "RDB". 

 

Initiating the Restore

No other settings under the General tab are applicable, so we will click the Start Restore button. A message will appear indicating the restore has successfully initiated. We click Yes to see the View Status window.

 

In the Activity Monitor of the NetBackup administration console, we see the restore job and can double-click on it to see detailed status. In the Job Overview tab we can see our database and the log files from the full and two differentials. In the Detailed Status tab, we can see some further information about the progress such as connecting to the client and, starting the bptm process to read from the images. For this demonstration, we should see 3 sub-jobs start as part of Job ID 416, namely we should see 3 different restores, one for the full and two for the two differentials.

 

If we go back to the BAR GUI’s view status window, we will see similar information. For instance we can see that we have a status 0 on the full with 6 of 6 files successful. The next job is the differential with a status 0 and 5 of 5 files successful and we see the final differential completed as well. We also see that there are messages about remaining jobs. After the first job, it said there were two jobs remaining and, therefore, recovery would be deferred. When we had one job remaining, recovery was still being deferred. After the last differential, it says there were no jobs remaining and recovery will be performed. We can see here after the last differential, there is a status 0. 

 

Looking in Activity Monitor, we also see the job with a blue man and a status 0. On a restore, any final status other than 0 should be considered an unsuccessful restore and the cause should be investigated and the restore retried.

 

We go back to the client and look at the Exchange Management Console. The Recovery database appears to be dismounted, but when we click on Refresh under Actions, the status is updated to reflect that the database is mounted.

 

Length: 9:01

 

The video can be viewed by clicking on the following link:   Restoring Exchange 2010 Database Availability Group (DAG) Backups to a Recovery Database (RDB) using NetBackup 7.0