exchange standby continuous replication

8/6/2019 Exchange Standby Continuous Replication

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Exchange Server 2007 Standby Continuous Replication

Microsoft ® Virtual Labs




Table of Contents

Exchange Server 2007 Standby Continuous Replication .......................................................... 1




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Exercise 1Built-in Protection – SCR creation (optional)

ScenarioExchange Server 2007 includes a new feature in Service Pack 1 called Standby Continuous Replication, or SCR.SCR makes it easy to add high availability and disaster recovery capabilities to your e-mail environment.

Tasks Detailed Steps

Complete the followingtask on:

SCR_PRIMARY

Note: SCR uses Exchange Server's built-in log file shipping capabilities to keep a copyof an Exchange database up-to-date on a standby server. This standby server can belocated in the same datacenter as the primary server, for quick recovery from disk-and server-level failures. Or it can be placed remotely, for recovery when an entiredatacenter fails.

In this demo, we'll set up SCR replication for one of the databases on this Exchangeserver. This server, called "PRIMARY" has 5 storage groups. We can configure SCRon an individual storage group level. This gives us the flexibility, for example, toreplicate only the mailboxes for executives in the company, rather than all employees

a. Open Exchange Management Console

b. Highlight the server " PRIMARY " in the list

c. Highlight the five storage groups one by one on the screen ( SG1, SG2, SG3, SG4,SG5 )

Note: Storage Group 1 has previously been configured for SCR. The company hasadded capacity at their disaster recovery site, so they want to enable it on StorageGroup 2 as well. This is done through the Exchange Management Shell.

d. Highlight Storage Group 2

e. Open Exchange Management Shell Note: I can run a built-in PowerShell cmdlet called "enable-storagegroupcopy,"specifying the storage group I want ("sg2") and the destination server, ("Standby1").

I press 'Enter', and that's all it takes.

f. Type the following enable-storagegroupcopy sg2 -StandByMachine standby1 ,and press ENTER

Note: Within a few minutes, Exchange will create a copy of this database on thestandby server, and keep it continually updated via log file shipping. This standbydatabase copy enables quick recovery from disk-level, server-level, and datacenter-level failures.




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h. Switch to SCR_STANDBY1 computer . Open Windows Explorer to C:\SG1\ and view log files there

Note: We can see this in action if we switch to the client machine and send an e-mail. Here I'm logged in as William Lyon.

i. Switch to SCR_CLIENT computer and open Outlook Web Access . If sessionhas timed out, log in again as litwareinc.com\WL (password: pass@word1 )

Note: I'll open a draft message to Andy Jacobs, and attach a large file.

j. Open the drafts folder, double-click the e-mail to Andy Jacobs

k. Attach the file " Fabrikam.txt " in My Documents. Note: The reason I'm attaching a large file is to ensure that a log file is created right away. Exchange Server creates log files whenever 1 megabyte of data is written to thetransaction log, so by sending a large message, we'll see a log file created immediately.

l. Press " Send " to send the message. Note: If we switch to the PRIMARY server, we'll see that a new log file has beencreated.

m. Switch to SCR_PRIMARY computer , and open C:\SG1\ in Windows Explorer.Show the newest log file (should be located at the bottom of the list)

Note: Then, the log file is immediately replicated over to the standby server,inspected, and replayed against the database. Here on the STANDBY server, we cansee that the log file has indeed been replicated.

n. Switch to SCR_STANDBY1 computer and show the file has been copied there

too Note: Because SCR uses simple log shipping, it has minimal networking and bandwidth requirements. The standby server can be located thousands of miles away,in a completely different Active Directory site and subnet.

o. Highlight a group of the log files Note: Let’s say that a disaster takes the primary datacenter offline. We'll switch to thePRIMARY server and simulate this disaster by running a script.

p. Switch back to SCR_PRIMARY computer and open the ExchangeManagement Shell

q. If the directory in the Exchange Mangement Shell is not under C drive, change thedirectory to C drive by typing cd C:\ hit enter , then run the script by typing./ForceFailure.ps1 and press ENTER

Note: This script abruptly dismounts all the databases on the primary server.

r. While the script is running, double-click c:\ForceFailure.ps1 to open it inNotepad.

Note: In Exchange Management Console, we can now see that all databases on the




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PRIMARY server are now offline.

s. Close Notepad and wait for the script to finish running

t. Open the Exchange Management Console . Press F5 to refresh the page to showthat all databases are dismounted

Note: If we return to Outlook Web Access, we can see that the CEO is no longer ableto connect to his mailbox. The outage has affected the entire company. In the past, an

event like this might leave employees without access to their mail for days. However,because the CEO's mailbox is on a database protected by Standby Continuous

Replication, he'll be back online in a matter of minutes.

u. Switch to SCR_CLIENT computer, click the top part of the web browserwindow, and press F5 to refresh OWA (to demonstrate that the user is nowoffline)

v. Close the OWA window (this is an important step - DO NOT SKIP IT) Note: To accomplish this, the administrator connects to the standby server, and activates the standby database by running a preconfigured script.

w. Switch to SCR_STANDBY computer and open the Exchange ManagementShell

Note: If we open this script, we can see that it has a handful of PowerShell commandsthat activate the database and prepare it for use. Having a single script to rundecreases the chance for administrator error under stressful circumstances.

x. If the directory for Exchange Management Shell is not under C drive, change thedirectory to C drive by typing cd C:\ hit enter , then Type./ActivateSTANDBY1.ps1 and press ENTER

y. While the script is running, browse to c:\ and double-click ActivateStandby1.ps1 to open it in Notepad

Note: In this scenario, we use database portability to bring the mailboxes online onthe new server. We could also have configured a standby cluster at the destination tosimplify activation. We've used a standalone server as the SCR source, but a CCRcluster or an SCC cluster could also have been used. SCR's flexibility makes it easy toadd site resilience to a wide range of high availability configurations.

z. Highlight the comment "Move the db portability database…" in Notepad Note: Once the script is finished, the CEO, and the rest of the users on this database,can access their mailboxes again. We can verify this by switching to the client machine and logging in as William Lyon.

aa. Close Notepadbb. Wait until the script finishes running.

cc. Switch to SCR_CLIENT computer and open Internet Explorer.

dd. Log in to OWA as litwareinc\wl (password: pass@word1)

ee. View William Lyon's inbox Note: Without SCR, getting everyone up and running and recovering their mailboxdata from tape might have taken days, if it could be recovered at all. That's the valuedelivered by SCR.




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