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BP1013 Best Practices for Enhancing Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Data Protection and Availability 40
Table 8 compares the results from the two scenarios described above.
Table 8 Seeding over the network versus seeding supported by SAN
Operation
Items
Throughput
Duration
Seeding over the network DB + Indexes 153 GB/h
Total (end-to-end restore) = 243
minutes
Operation
Task
Duration
Reseeding from Smart
Copy snapshot
Snapshot restore
25 seconds
Soft Recovery
9 minutes
Replica Resume (copy logs part)
1 minute
Replica Resume (log replay part)
5 minutes
Total (end-to-end restore) <= 15
minutes
We then identified a scenario where an Exchange administrator is setting up a new DAG node, or he is
recreating a volume after it has been deleted for administrative reasons. In this context, we have the
original mailbox database copy, residing in the Primary pool of the EqualLogic SAN and protected by
Smart Copy snapshots, but do not have any data available in the Secondary pool. The requirement was
to copy all the volume data across the iSCSI SAN network instead of using the Exchange Replication
service.
Test Details for one database, with the seeding process using the iSCSI SAN network:
Details Initial seeding of the database using a Smart Copy snapshot across two
different pools
Workload User workload applied or not
Key indicators Host resources impact
The steps needed to recover the required data on the target volume were as follows:
1. Create the definition of the mailbox database copy
2. Select the most recent SAN snapshot of the volume containing the source database mailbox
copy
3. Proceed with a Soft recovery procedure by ASM/ME (if not already done)
4. For safety, proceed with a Checksum verification procedure by ASM/ME (if not already done)
5. Create a clone of the snapshot (it will be assigned to the same storage pool)
6. Modify the new volume (cloned), setting its pool assignment to the target pool
7. Monitor the volume move to ensure it is happening correctly
8. Mount the new volume to the host connected to the target pool
9. Resume the regular activity of Exchange Replication service for this mailbox database copy