Here, you are going to know all about Exchange Disaster Recovery Plan. As you all know that Microsoft Exchange Server is an important part of any organization. It stores the entire information of Outlook including emails, contacts, calendars, tasks, and notes. It stores each data as a backup file of MS Outlook in the form EDB (Exchange Database) format.
Is our data completely secure in Exchange Server?
The answer is No.
The Exchange stores a large amount of data or user mailboxes and there is a higher risk of getting prone to disaster. If the prevention is not taken then it may lead to a disaster that either loses or damage your Exchange mailboxes. The disaster may take place because of a lack of a backup plan, absence of proper caring of the Exchange, human error, etc.
Reason of Exchange Server Disaster
- Software Crash
- Hardware issue
- Virus Attack/Ransomware
- System Crash
- Dirty Shutdown
- Human Error
These are some reasons that lead to damage to the Exchange database. To know more in detail you may follow: https://www.mailsdaddy.com/blogs/causes-exchange-database-edb-corruption-prevention/
Steps to prevent from Disaster in Exchange
Below are some steps to follow for a correct Exchange Recovery Plan.
Regular backup of Exchange mailboxes: This is the first step that you must execute in order to avoid suffering from any disaster. This step is necessary to keep your precious data always with you even if the Exchange suffers from an unexpected disaster.
Consistent upgrading of software/hardware: Issue with the software or hardware also leads to disaster in the Exchange mailbox. Therefore, it is important to do a time-to-time check of each installed application in Exchange. You should also need to update the outdated software. Also, check the performance of the hardware to upgrade it whenever required.
Prevent Exchange from Virus Attack: Always use the best and the reliable anti-virus for preventing Exchange from any virus or ransomware attack. There is also the risk of getting prone to virus attacks.
Deep knowledge of Exchange Recovery: Human error is one of the common reasons for any disaster. In Exchange Server also, a little error by the human leads to entire data loss. That is why it is mandatory that an Exchange Administrator should have a deep knowledge of the working on Exchange.
Exchange Disaster Recovery Plan
Once you suffer from a disaster in Exchange, you need to follow a recovery plan in order to get back your Exchange data. Below are some of the plans to execute to repair Exchange database.
Plan1: Performing Recovery using Eseutil
The very first step of any Exchange Disaster recovery plan is to check the consistency of the Exchange database using Eseutil/mh command. It allows you to find whether it is in a dirty shutdown state or not. If it is in an Exchange dirty shutdown state, then you to make it a clean shutdown state as it is also one of the reasons for the Exchange disaster.
eseutil/mh “path of priv.edb”
Plan 2: Repair Exchange
Use the below commands to retrieve EDB and de-frag log from the database using Eseutil/r and Eseutil/d respectively.
eseutil/r “path of priv.edb”
Plan 3: Executing Isinteg command
Apart from Eseutil, you can also recover Exchange mailboxes using the Isinteg command. It is also an in-built tool of Exchange like Eseutil.
“isinteg –s servername –fix –test all tests”
You may also visit here to know more:
Plan 4: Follow other repairing strategies
Exchange disaster leads to the corruption of the EDB file that needs to repair. You can do it exporting EDB mailbox into PST file format. There are numerous effective ways to it. You can do using the below methods.
- By Exchange Management Shell
- Through Exchange Admin Portal
- With the use of ExMerge Application
- Using Import and Export Wizard in Outlook
Plan 5: Recovery tool
If nothing works, you can take the help of a reliable Exchange Recovery tool to repair Exchange database. It is one of the easiest solutions for both beginner and professional users. The recovery tool resolves all issues in just a few minutes without being an expert in technical knowledge. For this, you also do not need to execute any kind of command to perform the recovery process.
Conclusion: Exchange Disaster Recovery Plan is important to make your damaged Exchange database mailbox into a readable format. I hope this blog will to learn all about the disaster recovery for exchange server.