In Part 1 of this series I discussed backup and recovery for each of the Exchange Server 2007 server roles and associated systems such as Active Directory.  In Part 2 I then described the process of backing up and recovering a Mailbox Server from the loss of a mailbox database.  In this part of the series I will demonstrate backup and recovery of the Hub Transport Server and Edge Transport Server roles.

Backing up Transport Servers

Unlike Mailbox Servers, the Hub Transport and Edge Transport roles do not require any special Exchange-aware backup software.  All of the necessary data for recovering a Transport server is contained within:

• Active Directory (for Hub Transport servers, but not Edge Transport servers)
• The Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM) database (for Edge Transport servers)
• The server’s file system
• The server’s System State

Hub Transport servers can be backed up using the built in Backup utility in Windows Server.  At the very least the backup should include the System State and the C:Program FilesMicrosoftExchange ServerTransportRoles location of the file system (and all sub directories).

Edge Transport servers are backed up in the same way as Hub Transport servers except for the Exchange Server configuration.  Because this is stored in ADAM it must first be cloned using the Export-EdgeConfig.ps1 script located in C:Program FilesMicrosoftExchange ServerScripts.  Execute the script with the name of the file you wish to export to. Note this is a single command run on one line in the Exchange Management Shell.

export-edgeconfig.ps1 c:edgeconfig.xml
 -key "abcdefghijklmnop"

It is recommended to either include this config file in your Edge Transport backups or use a path that is a shared folder on a remote server.

Recovering Hub Transport Servers

In this scenario the EXCHHUB server has been lost due to hardware failure.  Spare server hardware has been used to reinstall Windows Server 2003 along with the Exchange Server 2007 pre-requisites.  The newly built server has the same name and IP address of EXCHHUB.  Now we can begin the recovery of the Hub Transport server.
First, remove any Edge Subscriptions that existed for the Hub Transport server being recovered.  If you skip this step you may receive a certificate error during the recovery install.

In a command prompt run the following command from the location of the Exchange setup files.

setup /m:RecoverServer /DoNotStartTransport

This runs setup in recovery mode along with an additional instruction to not start the Transport services straight away.  This is so we can restore our mail queue databases and log files from the most recent backup before the server is put back into operation.

Recovering Edge Transport Servers

In this scenario the EXCHEDGE server has been lost due to hardware failure.  As with the Hub Transport server a new server and operating system has been installed with the same name and IP address.

To recover the Edge Transport server we will use the ImportEdgeConfig.ps1 script that ships with Exchange Server 2007.  First we run the script against the exported Edge config file from earlier to validate its contents. Note, this command is all one line.

ImportEdgeConfig.ps1 -cloneConfigData c:edgeconfig.xml
 -isImport $false -CloneConfigAnswer c:configanswer.xml
 -key "abcdefghijklmnop"

Validation succeeded for ConnectivityLogPath element of
 type DirectoryPath
Validation succeeded for MessageTrackingLogPath element of
 type DirectoryPath
Validation succeeded for PickupDirectoryPath element of
 type DirectoryPath
Validation succeeded for PipelineTracingPath element of
 type DirectoryPath
Validation succeeded for ReceiveProtocolLogPath element
 of type DirectoryPath
Validation succeeded for ReplayDirectoryPath element of
 type DirectoryPath
Validation succeeded for RoutingTableLogPath element of
 type DirectoryPath
Validation succeeded for RootDropDirectoryPath element of
 type NullableDirectoryPath
Validation succeeded for SendProtocolLogPath element of
 type DirectoryPath
Validation succeeded for SourceIPAddress element of
 type IPAddress
Validation succeeded for SourceIPAddress element of
 type IPAddress
Validation succeeded for Bindings element of type Bindings
Validation succeeded for Fqdn element of type FQDN
Answer File is successfully created: c:configanswer.xml

Note that the key is the same one used when the Edge config was exported earlier.  If any validation steps were unsuccessful open the answer file in a text editor and adjust the settings that it lists as invalid.

Once the config has been validated it can be imported with the same command but modifying the -isImport parameter to $true. Note again this is a single command.

ImportEdgeConfig.ps1 -cloneConfigData c:edgeconfig.xml
 -isImport $true -cloneConfigAnswer C:configanswer.xml
 -key "abcdefghijklmnop"

Importing Edge configuration information Succeeded.

Now that the Edge Transport server configuration has been restored you can re-create the Edge subscription between the Edge Transport and Hub Transport servers.

How to Back Up and Restore Client Access Servers

In the final part of this series I will demonstrate the process of backing up Client Access servers and then recovering them from failure.

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