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Testing Exchange 2003 Backups

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7 replies

by bob6803

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I am running a single Exchange 2003 server. All clients are running Office\Outlook 2003. What problems would I encounter if I installed another exchange server for only testing purposes on the domain? I would like to restore the backups to this spare server and verify backups are functioning like I expect. Would this cause problem with mail delivery to the wrong server?

7 replies

by bart777

Just make sure that your firewall is pointing to the correct server for SMTP traffic. Also your users should only be pointing to the old server as well. Just make sure that you don't start messing around with smarthost and redirectors.

As long as you're just wanting to verify backups you should be good. Once that is done you could remove that store and build a new one for testing and learning.

by retro77

Build this out on a seperate LAN segment that isnt connected to your production environment at all.

by bob6803

Do you mean a LAN that is not physically connected to my production LAN?
If I build it on a seperate LAN won't I have problems verifying the data by opening my own mailbox on a web client?
I wanted to take a spare machine, join it to the domain, use my production backups that are done through CA (not an NT backup), and then test the information on the new server by looking at my mailbox after pointing to the new machine.

Second choice would be create a domian controller, move it to a seperate LAN. Build a new Exchange server, connect the backup server with tape drive to the new LAN temporarily and restore the information that way.

If I can just add a new exchange server to the production environment but not cause any mail delivery problems that would work best.

by retro77

But wont you have problems with the same mailboxes already existing in the Exchange organization?

by bob6803

I guess that is part of what I trying to find out if it causes a conflict. If client aren't pointed to the test server and mail isn't being delivered to the mail server, won't it act like a snapshot of when the exchange server of last backed up? Will it just be a static mailbox that I would have to manually point Outlook at in order to connect? I don't need the mailbox on the test to actually receive and send mail, I just want to restore data to it, point a machine to a mailbox on it and look at the actual mail in the mailbox to verify evrything looks good.

by davemarriage

If successful, if you have time, please let me know what you did. I am in the beginning phase of trying to get the same outcome.

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