How to prepare for disaster recovery of Exchange Server

A disaster preparation plan is an absolute necessity for restoring Exchange efficiently and effectively in the event of a catastrophic failure. Because Exchange uses Windows security for authentication, disaster recovery of Exchange cannot be separated from the disaster recovery of Windows.

Planning ahead reduces the time needed to recover.

It is critical to build a kit that includes the following items:

  • An operating system configuration sheet

  • A hard drive partition configuration sheet

  • Any RAID configuration

  • A hardware configuration sheet

  • EISA/MCA configuration disks

  • An Exchange configuration sheet

  • A Windows emergency repair diskette

To perform the actual recovery, you will need the following items:

  • An installed copy of Backup Exec

  • The latest full, incremental, and differential backups of the Exchange databases you want to recover. If CPS backups are enabled, you can use recovery points to recover the Exchange database.

  • The Microsoft Exchange Server Installation CD

  • Any service packs that were applied to the original installation

How to prepare for disaster recovery of Exchange Server