Recreating a DB without permanently deleting it from Exchange

Robert M. Montee — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 00:36:00 GMT

The situation has come up for me that a Exchange 2010 database has grown larger than needed or expected and an Offline

Exchange Defrag with Eseutil isn’t a good option.Steps:

1. Move the mailboxes currently residing in the DB to other DBs or a temporarily created DB.

a. Make sure you move all the mailboxes. You can use the Exchange Management Console or PowerShell.

b. Get-mailbox –Database <DBNAME> | Get-MailboxStatistics | FT Displayname,DisconnectReason

c. Look for mailboxes that have a blank value for DisconnectReason. These are active mailboxes and still need to be moved before continuing.

d. If this Database is a member of a Database Availability Group (DAG) “remove” all the passive copies.

e. If using circular logging the last passive copy cannot be removed until circular logging is disabled on the active “Mounted” DB. Disabling circular logging will require the active DB be dismounted and remounted to take effect.

f. Using PowerShell execute the following commands:

g. Set-MailboxDatabase –Identity <DBNAME> -CircularLoggingEnabled:$False

h. Dismount-Database – Identity <DBNAME>

i. Mount-Database –Identity <DBNAME>

2. Remove the last passive database copy.

3. Dismount the active DB copy again.

4. Dismount-Database – Identity <DBNAME>

5. At this point you’ll need to delete all the existing database (.EDB) and log files that are connected to the database on all the servers that have copies of the files with Windows Explorer.

6. Remember if your .LOG files are stored separately to delete those as well.

7. Now you need to force mount the database on the server that you just dismounted in the previous step. This force mount will force Exchange to recreate a blank .EDB file for the database.

8. Mount-Database –Identity <DBNAME> -Force

9. If this database is part of a DAG there are a few steps remaining.

10. Create passive copies

11. Execute the following command as many times as needed to create the needed amount of copies.

12. Make sure each time the command is executed for a single DB that the ActivationPreference number is incremented.

13. Add-MailboxDataBaseCopy –Identity <DBNAME> -MailboxServer <TARGETSERVER> -ActivationPreference <#> -SeedingPostponed

14. Since database seeding was postponed in the last command we now need to begin seeding.

15. The source server can be any of the copies but in the end for the seeding to finish it will ultimately connect to the actively mounted copy.

16. You may have to suspend replication for the passive copies before running the update-mailboxdatabasecopy cmdlet.

17. Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy –Identity <DBNAME\HOSTNAME> -DeleteExistingFiles –Network <REPLICATIONNETWORK> -SourceServer <SOURCEDBSERVER>

18. Once all copies are created and if circular logging was enabled before it’s now a good time to re-enable circular logging.

19. Set-MailboxDatabase –Identity <DBNAME> -CircularLoggingEnalbed:$True

Hope this helps and hit me with feedback

Regards,

Robert

Generate A System Health Report

Robert M. Montee — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 05:34:00 GMT

I’ve been working on migrations a lot lately.

Something that comes up is the utilization of the Windows Server during or after migration.

Quick way I’ve found to comfort the customer that the server is performing or that a problem does exist is to “Generate a system health report”.

This report will collect data for 60 seconds about your local server and include suggestions for performance improvements.

There are a few ways to find this in Windows Server 2008.

First click “Start” and type “Generate a system health report”
Or second navigate your way to the Control Panel choose “System and Security” and choose “Generate a system health report”.
The last is to type “Generate a system health report” into the “Search Control Panel” box in the upper right hand corner of the Control Panel window.

Once armed with this data it’s easier to refute or acknowledge an issue is at hand.

BTW if you’re looking for this same thing in Windows 7 it’s there just buried a bit more.

Search Performance in the Start Menu, choose “Performance Information and Tools”, click “Advanced Tools” from the menu on the left, and finally choose “Generate a system health report”.

Montee's Blog

Recreating a DB without permanently deleting it from Exchange

Generate A System Health Report