We use Veritas NetBackup for system backup and recovery at work. The last step in our Exchange 2007 migration was to test backup and recovery of our mailbox databases. I was running what I thought would be simple tests to see if could restore the successfully backed up mailbox database. I was employing the Exchange 2007 recovery storage group (RSG) like a good boy and I was getting errors to the effect that I had not set up the RSG. After several failed attempts I had chalked this up to a Veritas bug and contacted Symantec.

This bug report discusses the errors I was received on my clustered mailbox server running on Windows Server 2008. Symantec provided me some engineering binaries destined for a future release. I applied this fix and tried again. It seemed to work this time. Out of the corner of my eye in Exchange Management Console I noticed that the database being recovered show dismounted while the restore occurred and the mounted when it was finished. I was shocked.

After verifying that the allow restore flag was false on this database and proving to myself that I had not restored to the production database, I was able to pull data out of the RSG successfully. I then repeated the restore, during which I was actively using on of the accounts on that database. Sure enough, it was not usable indicating that it's database was not online. This seems like a very big bug and I have submitted it back to Symantec. I will update this post when I find out more.

If you would like to read more about the recovery storage group in Exchange 2007, check out this excellent article.

http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Working-Recovery-Storage-Groups-Exchange-2007.html