Preparing Exchange 2013 Lab for Backup Testing

Like buses, I hadn’t done a Microsoft Exchange post for nearly 7 years, and then a second pops up within a few days.

Carrying on from this post I want to set up my Exchange 2013 DAG (which has 3 * mailbox servers and 5 * databases - each database has 3 copies), in such a way that the 2 mailbox servers in site A are “Active”, and the 1 mailbox server in site B is “Passive”, as illustrated in the diagram below.

Image: DAG1 with 5 databases across 3 mailbox servers

And this is very simple to do.


[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup | FT -AutoSize

Name Member Servers  Operational Servers
---- --------------  -------------------
DAG1 {MB3, MB2, MB1}

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Get-MailboxDatabase | Sort-Object -Property Name | FT -Autosize

Name Server Recovery ReplicationType
---- ------ -------- ---------------
DB1  MB1    False    Remote
DB2  MB2    False    Remote
DB3  MB3    False    Remote
db4  MB2    False    Remote
db5  MB3    False    Remote

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>move-activemailboxdatabase DB3 -ActivateOnServer MB1

Identity Active  Active Status    NumberOf MountStatus MountStatus
         Server  Server           OfLogs   AtMoveStart AtMoveEnd
                AtStart AtEnd            Lost    
-------- ------- ------ ------    -------- ----------- -----------
DB3      mb3     mb1    Succeeded 0        Mounted     Mounted

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>move-activemailboxdatabase DB5 -ActivateOnServer MB1

Identity Active  Active Status    NumberOf MountStatus MountStatus
         Server  Server           OfLogs   AtMoveStart AtMoveEnd
                AtStart AtEnd            Lost    
-------- ------- ------ ------    -------- ----------- -----------
db5      mb3     mb1    Succeeded 0        Mounted     Mounted

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>set-mailboxdatabasecopy -Identity DB2\MB1 -ActivationPreference 2
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>set-mailboxdatabasecopy -Identity DB3\MB1 -ActivationPreference 1
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>set-mailboxdatabasecopy -Identity DB4\MB1 -ActivationPreference 2
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>set-mailboxdatabasecopy -Identity DB5\MB1 -ActivationPreference 1

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>set-mailboxdatabasecopy -Identity DB1\MB2 -ActivationPreference 2
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>set-mailboxdatabasecopy -Identity DB3\MB2 -ActivationPreference 2
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>set-mailboxdatabasecopy -Identity DB5\MB2 -ActivationPreference 2

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>set-mailboxdatabasecopy -Identity DB1\MB3 -ActivationPreference 3
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>set-mailboxdatabasecopy -Identity DB2\MB3 -ActivationPreference 3
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>set-mailboxdatabasecopy -Identity DB3\MB3 -ActivationPreference 3
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>set-mailboxdatabasecopy -Identity DB4\MB3 -ActivationPreference 3
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>set-mailboxdatabasecopy -Identity DB5\MB3 -ActivationPreference 3

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Get-MailboxDatabase | Sort-Object -Property Name | FT -Autosize

Name Server Recovery ReplicationType
---- ------ -------- ---------------
DB1  MB1    False    Remote
DB2  MB2    False    Remote
DB3  MB1    False    Remote
db4  MB2    False    Remote
db5  MB1    False    Remote

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>"MB1","MB2","MB3" | Foreach{Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus -Server $_ | Sort-Object -Property Na
me | FT Name,Status,CopyQueueLength,ReplayQueueLength,ActivationPreference -AutoSize}

Name     Status CopyQueueLength ReplayQueueLength ActivationPreference
----     ------ --------------- ----------------- --------------------
DB1\MB1 Mounted               0                 0                    1
DB2\MB1 Healthy               0                 0                    2
DB3\MB1 Mounted               0                 0                    1
db4\MB1 Healthy               0                 0                    2
db5\MB1 Mounted               0                 0                    1

Name     Status CopyQueueLength ReplayQueueLength ActivationPreference
----     ------ --------------- ----------------- --------------------
DB1\MB2 Healthy               1                 1                    2
DB2\MB2 Mounted               0                 0                    1
DB3\MB2 Healthy               0                 0                    2
db4\MB2 Mounted               0                 0                    1
db5\MB2 Healthy               0                 0                    2

Name     Status CopyQueueLength ReplayQueueLength ActivationPreference
----     ------ --------------- ----------------- --------------------
DB1\MB3 Healthy               0                 0                    3
DB2\MB3 Healthy               0                 0                    3
DB3\MB3 Healthy               0                 0                    3
db4\MB3 Healthy               0                 0                    3
db5\MB3 Healthy               0                 0                    3


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