Recovery Storage Groups

A Recovery Storage Group allows you to restore databases, to extract mailbox data, and to merge that data to the original Storage Group on the production server. You can mount a second copy of an Exchange mailbox store on a production Exchange server when the original store is still running.

A Recovery Storage Group is useful in the disaster recovery process. SnapManager 5.0 and later for Exchange automates the mailbox store recovery process. In a normal recovery process, you need to manually create the Recovery Storage Group. Then you add the Exchange mailbox store through Exchange System Manager (ESM) on Exchange Server 2003 and management shell cmdlets on Exchange Server 2007. You can then restore the mailbox from the backup copies created and stored in the Recovery Storage Group.

You can restore databases to a Recovery Storage Group by using the restorebackup cmdlet with the appropriate parameter in the SnapManager command-line interface.

• Limitations of using a Recovery Storage Group
  Although you can benefit from using Recovery Storage Groups in SnapManager, there are some limitations with the restore source, the type of restore operation, configuration of the restore operation, and the creation of a Recovery Storage Group.
• Restoring a database to a Recovery Storage Group in Exchange Server 2007
  You can use the Restore wizard to restore databases to the Recovery Storage Group. You create a Recovery Storage Group using the Exchange Server Disaster Recovery Analyzer Tool (ExDRA) in Exchange Server 2007. SnapManager performs only a point-in-time restore process to the Recovery Storage Group during a restore operation.
• Restoring a database to a Recovery Storage Group in Exchange Server 2003
  You can mount a copy of a mailbox store onto a production server and recover data within the restored mailbox store while the current store is running using Recovery Storage Groups. You need to manually create the Recovery Storage Group and add a mailbox store by using Exchange System Manager (ESM).
• Restoring multiple databases to a Recovery Storage Group
  You can use SnapManager to restore multiple databases to a Recovery Storage Group. This option saves you from performing repeated restore operations.
• Restoring an unverified backup copy to a Recovery Storage Group
  As a part of a normal restore process, SnapManager verifies the backup Snapshot copies before the actual restore operation. If you need to perform a quick restore operation of a backup copy, you can override the database verification requirement. In such cases, SnapManager restores the unverified backup copy directly to the Recovery Storage Group.