In my LAB I use three computers
- DC2012: Domain Controller (domain mcthub.local) running Windows Server 2012.
- DPMSERVER: Domain Member running Windows Server 2012, this computer has been installed DPM 2012 SP1 (You can see Part 1)
- EXCHANGE1: Domain Member running Windows Server 2012 and Exchange Server 2013 (Mailbox Role and Client Access Role)
(You can see: Installing Exchange 2013)
Now, you need to configure the storage pool. DPM 2012 requires a disk that is dedicated to the storage pool. I have a disk connected to this computer (Disk 0) as a good disk to configure as DPM storage.
Open DPM Administrator Console, in the Management task area, on the Disks tab, in the Actions pane, click Add button. A warning pops-up asking that the disk will be converted to dynamic, click Yes.
The disk will show up as belonging to the DPM storage pool. Choose the disk and click Add button
Click OK button
Make sure status of the disk is Healthy
Switch to EXCHANGE1, open Exchange admin center, navigate to servers - databases you can see EXCHANGE1 server hosting a mailbox databse named Mailbox Database 1
Navigate to recipients - mailboxes you can see I have several mailboxes
Installing Agent
Switch to DOMSEREVR. To install a Protection Agent, in the Management task, on the Agents tab, click Install .
The Protection Agent Installation wizard appears and guides you through the process of creating the protection agent. Select Install agents - click Next
Select one or more computers from the Computer name list (I select EXCHANGE1) and click Add
Make sure that EXCHANGE1 has appeared in the "Selected computers" box, click Next
Type the user name and password for a domain user account that is a member of the local administrators group on all selected servers and click Next.
DPM will try to detect clusters
Select the method you will use to restart the computers after the protection agent is installed. Click Next.
Click Install to start installation
After the installation was successful - Click Close
Veriry status of the agent is OK
Verify the success of the installation process
Swith to EXCHANGE1, if the agent is installed, it will now appear on the Programs and Features
- Open Services Console. You will see that DPMRA service is Running, and you need to set Startup type to Automatic - Click OK
- Next, you must copy the ese.dll and eseutil.exe files (usually located at C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Bin) to the DPM Server. The eseutil.exe and ese.dll versions that are installed on the most recent release of Exchange Server must be the same versions that are installed on the DPM server. In addition, you must update eseutil.exe and ese.dll on the DPM server if they are updated on a computer running Exchange Server after applying an upgrade or an update
Paste the two files to C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012\DPM\DPM\bin folder on the DPM server
Creating Protection Group
To create a Protection Group, in the Protection task, click New button
The New Protection Group Wizard appears and guides you through the process of creating the protection group - Click Next.
- Select Servers - Click Next
- Select Mailbox Database 1 on EXCHANGE1 server - Click Next
- Type an arbitrary name for Protection Group. Select I want short-term protection using check box for short-term protection and then select the media you want to use from the drop-down list. Because my server do not have a tape attached to the DPM server, only Disk is available. Click Next.
Select the Run Eseutil to check data integrity check box to check the integrity of the Exchange Server databases. If you didn’t previously copy the eseutil file, you’ll see an error
On the Specify Exchange DAG Protection page, Click Next because in my Exchange system does not currently exist DAG
(See about configuring DAG in my previous article)
Select the retention duration for data recovery in the Retention range box. In the Synchronization frequency section, enter the frequency of the incremental backups. click Next
DPM will display its recommended disk allocations, accept default values - click Next
Select when you want DPM to execute the initial replication of your data, I select Now and click Next
Choose either the Run a consistency check if a replica becomes inconsistent or the Run a daily consistency check according to the following schedule. Click Next.
Review the tasks that DPM is set to perform to create the protection group and click Create Group
Click Close when completed
Verity status of Protection Group. If you see status is Replica creation in progress, please patient and wait until status is OK
Installing Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2012 Update 3
Accept the license information and click Install
Click Close
Then perform consistency check again
Wait until status of the protection group is OK
At this point, the backup process for Exchange Server 2013 mailbox database has completed. I will now proceed emulator error to recover. DPM allows you to recover all data, recover a single mailbox database or recover a single mailbox. To simulate the complete loss of the Mailbox Database 1 database, I stopped the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service
Then I deleted the .edb file,
Then I start Microsoft Exchange Information Store service
Open Exchange admin center, refresh and verify Mailbox Database 1 appear as dismounted
Try to mount Mailbox Database 1
You will see an error dialog box as shown below
Open Outlook App using URL https://exchange1.mcthub.local/owa, you'll see a error message as shown bellow
Now you must go to the Exchange Server in order to allow the database to be overwritten by the restore. If you miss this step, the restore will fail. Open Exchange Administration Center and navigate to servers >databases, select Mailbox Database 1, click Edit button. on maintenance tab, select the This database can be overwritten by a restore check box and click save
Switch DPMSERVER. Open DPM Administrator Console and click Recovery . Browse to the mailbox database you wish to recover (Mailbox Database 1) in the All Protected Exchange Data node. Click any bold date in the calendar, select the Latest recovery point from the Recovery time drop-down box and click Recover to launch the Recovery Wizard
Review the recovery selection and click Next
Select Recover to original Exchange Server locationand click Next
Make sure Mount the databases after they are recovered checkbox is selected and click Next
Click Recover button to start recover
This action will take a few moments to complete. Please wait
Click Close when finished
Check out the success of the recovery process. Click Monitoring, you will see Alert column display as "Recovery success"
Switch to EXCHANGE1 verify .edb file has been restored
Open Exchange admin center, refresh and verify Mailbox Database 1 appear as mounted
Verify by opening Outlook Web App
Next situation I will simulate a specific user lost mail, open Outlook Web App and delete all messages
DPM 2012 supports the recovery of individual mailboxes, to recover a mailbox, DPM must copy the entire database, because this is the recommended method that Exchange supports, so you create a recovery database attempting this recover , I will create a recovery database named RecoverDB by using two following commands in Exchange Management Shell
New-MailboxDatabase -Recovery -Name RecoverDB -Server EXCHANGE1
Set-MailboxDatabase -Identity ReciverDB -AllowFileRestore $true
Then you must restart Microsoft Exchange Information Store service to take affect
Verify the list of mailbox databases by using command Get-MailboxDatabase
Now I'll recover Administrator 's mailbox to RecoverDB database. Switch to DPMSERVER. Select Recovery - All Protected Exchange Data - Mailbox Database 1 - slelect Administrator. You cannot select Latest as the recovery point, this functionality is not available for individual mailboxes
Click Recover
Review the tasks that DPM is set to perform to recover the mailbox of Administrator and click Next
Select Recover mailbox to an Exchange server database to recover the mailbox to its original server, or select Copy to a network folder to copy the database files to a separate folder location - Click Next
Specify the location to write the recovered mailbox database to (The Recovery Mailbox you created in previous step)
Click Next
Review your selected settings and click Recover
When the recovery is complete, click Close
When the recovery is complete, all messages of Administrator has been restored to RecoverDB database, The final step to restore the mailbox is to run a following command:
New-MailboxRestoreRequest –SourceDatabase RecoverDB –SourceStoreMailbox Administrator –TargetMailbox Administrator@mcthub.local –TargetRootFolder Recovery
Then verify status of the process is "Completed" by using following command
Get-MailboxRestoreRequest
Now open Outloook Web App, open Recovery - Inbox folder you'll see all messages has been restored
Thank you for reading my article
To view my article in Vietnamese, click the link below mcthub