Restoring Microsoft Exchange 2003 on another server with a different name?
Is there any way that I can restore a exchange 2003 backup to another server running exchange enterprise edition (sitting in a workgroup) without renaming the new server to the same name as the old exchange 2003 box? The whole theory behind this is that we want to be able to restore a bunch of our clients exchange backups on this new server in our lab in case a user deletes e-mail that they later realize they need. I'm using enterprise here because I know that it is capable of having multiple stores. From the research that I have done it seems that this can not be done however I wanted to check with you guys before giving up. Is there an easier way of achieving this?
ASKER
Well, what else would suit our needs?
What type of backup do you have? Is it file level or mail 'brick-level' ?
Also, what software are you backing up with? A good deal of Exchange restore capability depends on how the backup was taken in the first place.
Also, what software are you backing up with? A good deal of Exchange restore capability depends on how the backup was taken in the first place.
ASKER
I used MS backup and just selected exchange mail store. (Thanks for the prompt response)
why don't you use recovery storage group that comes up exchange 2003?
ASKER
Thats what I used. Sorry I should have clarified.
so, are you not able to restore the backups to the recovery storage group?
I'm pretty certain you won't be able to mount any stores restored using NTBackup on a server other than the one it was taken from. There are 3rd party options (as I mentioned above) but none of them are cheap or easy.
I recommend doing some test runs on your lab environment, using the Recovery Storage Group. This may be enough for your needs (i.e. if you just need to exmerge out some mailboxes, rather than remounting the entire store for client use).
I recommend doing some test runs on your lab environment, using the Recovery Storage Group. This may be enough for your needs (i.e. if you just need to exmerge out some mailboxes, rather than remounting the entire store for client use).
ASKER
Is there a tech doc or a white paper that would help with this? After that we can call it a day.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
We've done some Exchange restores to different servers, but never to a running state, and only enough that we can use other 3rd party tools to extract email. Your best bet is probably to use a Recovery Storage Group on their existing Exchange server.
For reference, the product we've had most joy with is Ontrack Powercontrols, but it's pretty expensive!