Data Protection Manager for Exchange 2010, 2013

In the present era, technology has really boomed for all, playing pivotal role in all sectors of any economy. But, the most unfortunate thing is that data loss disasters are a by-product of this technological evolution. So, for ensuring accessibility of resources during such planned/unplanned data outages, there is great need of Disaster-Recovery. Such recovery approaches help in the times of odd data loss scenarios when situations worsen while user is trying to restore normal workflow condition. Data Protection Manager for Exchange 2013 & 2010 is discussed in this blog.

Data Protection Manager(DPM)

Efficient Business-Continuity & Disaster-Recovery strategies keep users’ data safe, secure & in recoverable state. Also, this would ensure business applications, office workloads, & business services to be available in continuity. One of these best Systems contributing to BCDR-strategy is the Data-Protection-Manager. This particular System-Center DPM helps in facilitating both, the recovery of Enterprise-Data as well as DPM Backup for Exchange.

Data Protection Manager for Exchange 2010, 2013

Talking about MS Exchange Server, one can easily state that it will include native data-protection. Though this inbuilt protection is very much capable, still under some circumstances, traditional backups are needed even then. In such stages, DPM backup for Exchange helps; for the reason that, it is designed especially to offer protection to MS Exchange Server & other Microsoft workloads. Also, Native-Data-Protection would work well in Disaster-Recovery, in the recovery of items deleted accidentally, point-in-time database’s snapshots, and for long-term storage of data. But, in case of corruption, application error, any virus/malware incident, as well as any security concerns, this might not prove to be the best option. In such cases, DPM proves to be the sure and shot ultimate solution.

Technologies Used by Data Protection Manager for Exchange 2010, 2013

Data Protection Manager or DPM makes use of different technologies for delivering continuous protection of for MS Exchange Server 2010 version and Exchange server 2013. This helps support the following:

• Continuous replication
• Standalone mailbox-databases’ backup
• Both active databases as well as passive databases in DAG

DPM Backup for Exchange 2013

• Under database-availability-group, Exchange mailbox databases’ backup
• Exchange-Server roles’ Backup
• Configuring of Volumes-protection
• Providing protection for whole of Exchange’s data as well as configuration settings

Reasons to Choose Data-Protection-Manager for Backing up Exchange

• While backing up with DPM’s protection, no such reliance is there on DAG
• DPM has been practicing simple & centralized Data-Recovery
• DPM backup for exchange always ensures constant Microsoft workloads’ backup
• DPM provides lengthier backup data retention period in comparison to Native Protection

DPM Deployment Prerequisites for Exchange 2013

The following must be fully verified by users before they deploy Data Protection Manager for Exchange 2013:

• Examining of the Release-Notes & also what has been supported, for checking any Exchange issues
• Ensuring same Ese.dll & Eseutil.exe DPM Servers’ & Exchange’s versions
• Ensuring Visual-Studio 2012 Update; user owns the latest Visual C++ Redistributable
• Ensuring Data Protection Manager’s protection agent installation on node for MS Exchange 2013 DAG (i.e. the Database Availability Group)’s node protection
• Ensuring configuration of at least 1 full backup every day
• Ensuring backup Copies not truncating log files
• Ensuring minimum protection of 2 copies of each mailbox’s database, regardless of the fact that if
• Exchange implements with many JBOD disks and drives or Serial ATA
• Ensuring that mailbox synchronization’s minimum frequency has been set to more than fifteen mins
• Ensuring the creation of many protection groups & adding Exchange Databases to each protection group to house parallel Exchange’s database-backups

Points for Consideration

• Deploying DPM: One of the most important steps is of ensuring Data Protection Manager for Exchange to be installed and deployed in a correct manner.
• Set up of Storage: Backed up data could possibly be stored in an effortless way on tape, disk, & in the cloud with Azure; and so set up data storage.
• Setting up DPM’s Protection Agent: This is quite necessary for ensuring the agents being installed on MS Exchange Server.

Process of Recovery of Enterprise-Data in Exchange

Recovery of Enterprise-Data in Exchange with the help of Data Protection Manager for Exchange usually consists of recovery of single mailboxes, recovery of database & recovery of entire server

• For Single Mailbox

Following are the steps that need to be performed for recovering single mailboxes:

a) Make sure having some existing recovery mailbox’s database on the Exchange Server that is protected. If user does not have one, he can create that with the help of cmdlet— New-MailboxDatabase
b) Use cmdlet— Set-MailboxDatabase for configuring recovery database
c) Select Recovery-view under DPM’s Administrator-Console
d) Direct that to mailbox’s database which needs recovery
e) Now, go to Recovery Time
f) Here, select Recover
g) Then, choose the option of Recovery points
h) In this, click the data
i) Select a recovery point
j) In Recovery-Wizard, examine recovery selection
k) And then, click Next
l) State which recovery type needs execution
m) Then, click Next
n) After that, Specify-Recovery-Options screen pops
o) In this, it is to be specified if user wishes to mount databases or wishes to enable throttling or wishes enabling of SAN-based recovery, or wishes sending a mail-notification when completed or not to do that
p) And then, under the Summary screen, review Recovery settings
q) Now, click Recover
r) On successfully completing, click Close
s) Towards the end of this particular step, Recovery process completes
t) But Mailbox is not restored fully
u) For resetting the mailbox, user needs to run cmdlet:

New-MailboxRestoreRequest -SourceDatabase ‘RDB-CONTROL’ -SourceStoreMailbox ‘mailbox name’ -TargetMailbox @contoso.com -TargetRootFolder Recovery -SkipMerging StorageProviderForSource

v) After that, run Windows PowerShell cmdlet for dismounting & deleting Recovery Mailbox’s database: Remove-MailboxDatabase -Identity ‘RDB-CONTROL’

• Recover Data with DPM’s Administrator-Console

Below given are the steps that need to be followed to understand data recovery by Data Protection Manager for Exchange:

1. First, go to DPM’s Administrator-Console
2. Select Recovery-view
3. Here, select mailbox database needs to be recovered
4. Select a particular date under the Recovery-Points section
5.  Then, choose Latest for getting latest backup
6.  And then, click Recover
7.  After that, analyze recovery selection under Recovery-Wizard
8.  Click next once done
9.  In this, state recovery type wanted for execution
10.  Click Next
11.  Specify-Recovery-Options screen appears
12. Here, select Mount the databases after recovery & the option of Network’s bandwidth usage throttling
13.  Next, for enabling the option of SAN-based recovery, check proper boxes
14.  Click the option (Send email when recovery completes) in Notification window
15.  Do this by specifying recipient’s mail address
16. Open MS Exchange’s Admin-Center once again
17. Click Servers
18. Select Databases
19.  Select Exchanger mailbox database needs to be overwritten
20. Then, click Edit
21. After that, click Maintenance
22. Select – This-database-can-be-overwritten-by-a-restore
23. And then, click Save
24.  Click Summary-screen for viewing Recovery Settings
25. Now, click Recover
26.  Finally, click Finish

• For Entire Exchange Server

Following are the steps for recovering data with Data Protection Manager for Exchange:

1.  Select Recovery view under DPM’s Administrator-Console,
2. Select Server needing recovery
3.  Then, click Recovery Time
4.  After that, choose Recover
5. Click the option for Recovery-Points
6. In this, from the list, select data & recovery point
7.  Right-click BMR
8. Then Recover
9. Go to Recovery Wizard
10.  Examine Recovery-Selection
11.  Then, click Next
12.  Choose (Copy-to-a-network-folder-or-Copy-to-tape) option according to preference under the screen of Selective-Recovery-Type
13. And then, under the screen (Specify-Destination), choose location where database files need to be stored
14. Then, go to screen (Specify-Recovery-Options)
15.  Do these actions
16.  Mount databases after recovery
17.  Network bandwidth usage throttling
18. With hardware snapshots, enable SAN-based recovery
19. Enable notifications according to convenience
20.  Now, go to Monitoring-Tab for viewing the progress of this process
21. A recovery message generates after successful completion of recovery process
22.  Open destination folder of files recovered
23. Rename this folder
24.  For executing Bare-Metal-Recovery, insert operating system ISO
25.  Select Repair
26.  Choose System-Image-Recovery under Advanced options.
27.  Choose Select-a-system-image under Select-a-system-image-backup-screen
28.  Go to Advanced option
29.  Choose recovery files from network share
30. Click Search-for-a-system image on network
31.  Choose Yes
32.  State network folder, choose backup, specify date & time of image needing restoration
33.  Stating of additional driver & disk settings can also be done
34. Click Finish for restoration

Another Amazing Alternative

Certainly and undoubtedly, DPM or Data Protection Manager for Exchange recovery could possibly be a very good choice, but there are some limitations attached to it like the use of VSS-snapshot supporting only up to sixty-four snapshots, along with limited flexibility with no incremental/differential/full backups, as well as similar retention policy for data residing on the same volume. Also, as it is a manual method, so there are risks associated with this process. 3rd-party recovery tool i.e. Exchange Recovery Software provided by SysTools, instead, are simple, speedy, safe, superb in performance, and use the utility to recover Exchange Mailbox and repair EDB file without data loss.

This recovery manager for Exchange database software provides scan mode option (Quick & Advance scan) that easily remove the corruption from offline / dismounted Microsoft Exchange database file and repair Exchange mailbox. The advance scanning mode also recovers hard deleted mailbox & data items from offline/dismounted EDB file. You can easily recover deleted mailbox after retention periodwith the help of this option.

Then user can extract mailbox from EDB file Exchange 2016/2013 to the Live Exchange (2016 / 2013 / 2010 / 2007 / 2003) mailboxes, Office 365, and HTML, PDF, EML, MBOX, PST, MSG file format in a simplified manner.

Conclusion

Unlike manual DPM process, professional Exchange Recovery tools are anything but result-oriented and that’s what matters the most. One such tool is offered by SysTools to recover Exchange mailbox and EDB file, which is great in a performance that acts as best (DPM) Data Protection Manager for Exchange Alternative.