Restoring Exchange Server 2010 using Windows Server Backup

In my last article we discussed how to benefit from the built-in windows server backup feature of Windows 2008 and 2008 R2 and perform healthy backups of your Microsoft Exchange databases for free, without the need for any 3rd party tool. Today, we are going to go over the restore process by looking at two different situations; the first one is when we have experienced a complete loss of one database, and the second is when we need to recover just a single item from a mailbox.


http://www.simple-talk.com/sysadmin/exchange/restoring-exchange-server-2010-using-windows-server-backup/?utm_source=simpletalkExchange&utm_medium=email-sysadmin&utm_content=Restoring-20100706&utm_campaign=Exchange

Backing up Exchange 2010 For Free

It's hardly surprising that many SysAdmins are willing to pay over the odds for sophisticated backup solutions which they don't necessarily need, just to make sure their data is safe ASAP. Thankfully, Antoine Khater is here to give you a short and sweet walkthrough on how to keep your Exchange 2010 Server backed up for free. And the best news? You've already got everything you need.


http://www.simple-talk.com/content/article.aspx?article=1040

Uncovering Exchange 2010 Database Availability Groups (DAGs) (Part 2)

In this part of this multi-part series, I will provide the steps necessary in order to prepare two servers to be used in a two DAG member solution. Both Exchange 2010 servers are placed in the same Active Directory site in the same datacenter.

http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2010/high-availability-recovery/uncovering-exchange-2010-database-availability-groups-dags-part2.html

Uncovering Exchange 2010 Database Availability Groups (DAGs) (Part 1)

What an Exchange 2010 Database Availability Group (DAG) is all about and how this high availability feature may fit into your Exchange 2010 organization. Providing also step by step instructions on how to deploy DAG and other best practice recommendations.

http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2010/high-availability-recovery/uncovering-exchange-2010-database-availability-groups-dags-part1.html

Upgrade Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010

In this article, the first of two in which Jaap describes how to move from Exchange Server 2003 straight to Exchange Server 2010, he shows what is required before moving mailboxes from Exchange Server 2003 to Exchange Server 2010. He shows how to upgrade Active Directory, install both Exchange Server 2010 and certificates, and set up the Public Folder replication.

http://www.simple-talk.com/sysadmin/exchange/upgrade-exchange-2003-to-exchange-2010/?utm_source=simpletalkExchange&utm_medium=email&utm_content=UpgradeExchange-20091221&utm_campaign=Exchange

Part II here.

A Beginner’s Guide to Virtualizing Exchange Server, Part 2

It isn't easy to measure the consumption of physical resources by servers in virtual machines, since each partition has its' own virtualised view of system resources. Not only that, but there is a subtle difference between virtual processors and physical processors. Brien Posey explains the special performance counters that can be used to get an accurate assessment, and goes on to describe how to test your physical servers to see if they are good candidates for virtualization.

If you read my first article in this series, then you got something of a crash course in Hyper-V’s architecture. Of everything that I covered in that article though, there are two main points that you need to keep in mind:

1. When it comes to virtualizing Exchange Server, it is critical that you monitor resource consumption so that you can ensure that there are sufficient hardware resources available to effectively service Exchange and any other virtual machines that may be running on the server.
2. Each of the various resource monitoring mechanisms that I showed you tells a completely different story regarding how much of the server’s physical resources are actually being consumed.

In other words, it is important to find out how much of the server’s resources are being consumed, but you are not going to be able to do so in the usual way.

Exchange - How to Calculate Your Disk I/O Requirements

Calculating your disk I/O requirements ultimately allows you to optimize your disk subsystem to best support your users.
Your goal is to provide enough disk I/O performance (measured by the number of I/O operations per second [IOPS] that can be performed) with acceptable latency that allows for efficient Exchange functionality.
Calculating the IOPS per mailbox is a convenient way to measure the profile for a given server based on random database read/write I/O (transaction log I/O is not factored into this equation). The higher the IOPS per mailbox, the more aggressive the mailbox profile is in terms of disk usage.

Virtualizing Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2003 with Hyper-V

Microsoft offers two Hyper-V products—Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, which is a role in Windows Server 2008, and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, which is a standalone server-virtualization product—that you can use to virtualize Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 servers. Here's an overview of what you should consider, the processes you can follow, and the requirements you need to meet to virtualize Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2003 with Hyper-V.

Exchange Servers in Hardware Virtualization Environments

Microsoft Support Policies and Recommendations for Exchange Servers in Hardware Virtualization Environments

This Technet page provides the Microsoft support policies for running currently supported versions of Microsoft Exchange Server in production in a hardware virtualization environment.