Exchange and Outlook UPDATE, Exchange Edition—brought to you by Exchange & Outlook Administrator, a print newsletter from Windows & .NET Magazine that contains practical advice, how-to articles, tips, and techniques to help you do your job today.
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April 26, 2002—In this issue:
1. COMMENTARY
- Using a Recovery Server in an Exchange 5.5 Environment
2. ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Don't Miss Windows & .NET Magazine LIVE!
- Cast Your Vote for Our Reader's Choice Awards!
3. RESOURCES
- Exchange HOWTO: Send Digitally Signed Messages by Using CDOSYS/CDOEX
- Featured Thread: Sending Mail to a Remote Site
4. NEW AND IMPROVED
- cAfee Security Announces GroupShield 5.0 for Exchange 5.5
5. CONTACT US
- See this section for a list of ways to contact us.
1. COMMENTARY
(contributed by Jerry Cochran, News Editor, [email protected])
One of the most challenging areas of an Exchange Server administrator's job is disaster recovery. You must consider every scenario, including mailbox and message recovery, Information Store (IS) recovery, and complete Exchange Server recovery. Individual mailbox and message recovery (sometimes called brick-level recovery) can be the most daunting of these scenarios. Microsoft doesn't provide a definitive solution but rather leaves the field open to third-party developers. Many third-party solutions for mailbox- or message-level recovery exist, but most are far from perfect. However, one approach to brick-level recovery should become your best practice, regardless of which version of Exchange you run. This solution--an Exchange recovery server--can be a useful tool for every Exchange administrator. Of course, Exchange Server 5.5 provides recovery retention for deleted items and Exchange 2000 Server adds mailbox retention to that capability, but these two mechanisms might not meet all your disaster-recovery requirements, so the recovery-server option is nice to have available.
The idea behind an Exchange recovery server is to maintain a spare server that you can use as a target location for recovery operations. No matter which version of Exchange you run, you can recover an IS to the recovery server, then restore complete mailboxes or individual messages by using Outlook or a program such as Exmerge to extract the items from the recovered IS. This week, I begin a two-part commentary about the practice of using a recovery server. Recovery-server capability is available for any version of Exchange, but configuration varies depending on whether you use Exchange 5.5 (or earlier) or Exchange 2000. Because most of you use Exchange 5.5, I'll start with the strategy for that environment. Next week, I'll finish up with the recovery-server scenario for Exchange 2000 environments.
With Exchange 5.5 and earlier versions, your recovery server can be any member server or domain controller (DC) in the same domain as your original Exchange server. When you install and configure the recovery server, use the same organization- and site-naming conventions and hierarchy as you used with the original server, but use a different server name and don't join the recovery server to the production organization. You can even use the same Exchange Service account, but the recovery server must have a different name than the original server--you don't want the recovery server to start participating in the Exchange organization and performing directory replication. The result will be a server with a different name but with the same organization and site names as the original server. Because you don't join the recovery server to the organization during installation, this configuration lets the server function in the environment without causing problems for the production Exchange 5.5 deployment.
After you install and configure the recovery server, you can restore an IS to the server. However, because you didn't join the recovery server to the existing organization, the directory database on the recovery server won't contain any objects. You can manually create mailbox objects in the directory to match the objects you want to recover, or you can run the Directory Service (DS)/IS consistency adjuster (which you can access from the Microsoft Exchange Administrator menu) to automatically generate directory mailbox objects for each mailbox in the IS. Either action links IS mailboxes to directory objects on the recovery server. Then, you can simply install the Outlook client on the recovery server, or you can use a tool such as Exmerge to extract mailbox data to personal store (.pst) files, then import the data back to the appropriate mailboxes on the production server.
Setting up a recovery server might seem like too much bother. However, if you want to provide brick-level disaster recovery for your Exchange users, this system can be a lifesaver. Next week, I'll discuss the deployment of recovery servers in an Exchange 2000 environment--a process that's quite different from the Exchange 5.5 process because of Exchange 2000's dependence on Active Directory (AD).
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2. ANNOUNCEMENTS
Industry-leading magazines have joined to produce Windows & .NET Magazine LIVE! and SQL Server Magazine LIVE!--two events for the price of one. Don't miss this chance to interact with technical experts Mark Minasi, Mark Russinovich, Sean Daily, Brian Moran, Kalen Delaney, and other gurus. Register today before this event sells out. http://www.winnetmagLIVE.com
Which companies and products do you think are the best on the market? Nominate your favorites in four different categories for our annual Windows & .NET Magazine Reader's Choice Awards. You could win a T-shirt or a free Windows & .NET Magazine Super CD, just for submitting your ballot. Click here! http://www.winnetmag.com/readerschoice
3. RESOURCES
Each week, Microsoft posts several Exchange Server how-to articles to its Knowledge Base. This week, learn how to use the Cryptography API with Collaboration Data Objects for Windows 2000 (CDOSYS) or Collaboration Data Objects for Exchange 2000 (CDOEX) to digitally sign or encrypt a message.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q280391
Simon is looking for an inexpensive way to provide email capabilities to several systems at a remote site. If you can help or want to join the discussion, go to the following URL:
http://www.exchangeadmin.com/forums/thread.cfm?cfapp=72&thread_id=103142&mc=3
4. NEW AND IMPROVED
(contributed by Bob Kretschman, [email protected])
McAfee Security, a division of Network Associates, announced GroupShield 5.0 for Microsoft Exchange 5.5. The product combines content filtering, detection of suspicious or joke programs, and multi mode scanning--which supports Virus Scanning API (VS API), Messaging API (MAPI), and Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) scanning--to help protect Exchange Server 5.5 users from hybrid threats. For pricing and additional information, contact McAfee Security at 972-308-9960.
http://www.mcafeesecurity.com
5. CONTACT US
Here's how to reach us with your comments and questions:
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