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Wednesday 20 April 2016

Simplifying Exchange's “Recover Deleted Items” option simplified

Ever since Exchange 2000’s “dumpster,” the consequences of deleting important mail aren’t too much of an issue. Users can easily recover the deleted items without having to involve the administrator.

The “Recover Deleted Items” option allows you to ensure that items are available for user recovery and administrators can preserve the items for as long as they need.

“Recover Deleted Items” option is implemented in different ways in Outlook and Outlook Web App.
Recover deleted items in Outlook for Windows

In order to search for deleted items, open the Deleted Items folder in Outlook. There you will be able to see all your deleted items. If you can’t find the item you’re looking for, then you can access the “Recover Deleted Items” option. With this feature, you can recover items such as messages, appointments, contacts, tasks, and notes. You can even do this to recover hard deleted items. This feature works only with Microsoft Exchange Server account and not with POP3 or IMAP accounts.

To recover deleted items in Outlook, follow these steps:

  1. To search for the missing item, go to the Deleted Items folder.
  2. Choose Folder and then Recover Deleted Items.
  3. Then select the message that you want to recover and click on the Restore Selected Items option and then click ok.
This method will save the recovered items into the Junk Email folder.

Recover deleted items in Outlook on the web

With this method, you can recover your deleted email messages, contacts, calendar items, tasks through the browser. To recover deleted items in Outlook on the Web, follow these steps:
  1. Login to your account.
  2. In the email folder list, right-click on the Deleted Items and then Choose Recover Deleted Items option.
  3. Now, select the items that you want to recover and then click on the Recover tab.

The interface of Outlook and Outlook Web do differ in many ways. This includes:
  • In OWA, the Recover Deleted Items option is available when the Deleted Items folder is selected, whereas in Outlook you don’t have to select it.
  • Outlook Web Access sorts items by received date and doesn’t support any additional sort options whereas Outlook sorts items by using any of the available columns shown in the Recover Deleted Items dialog. .  
  • OWA doesn’t support the Recover Deleted Items option for all folders, it guesses where a recovered item should go based on the item type whereas Outlook restores all the selected items and sends them to the Junk Email folder..
Drawbacks to these approaches

One major drawback is that you cannot recover a deleted item to its original folder. Logically it would be helpful to return the item to a folder where it can be used. It’s fairly easy to move a recovered item from the Inbox to its original location but it would make more sense for Exchange to track the last folder in which the item was stored before deletion. This would give clients a more accurate way of knowing where the item should be recovered to i.e. to its original folder.

Overcoming these drawbacks

The native recovery approach is logical to use but it isn’t particularly intuitive when it comes to returning recovered items to their original location. To improve the functionality of “Recover Deleted Items” a third party solution like Lepide Exchange RecoveryManager is needed. The solution eliminates all the limitations associated with native options - allowing you to repair and restore all the aspects of your Exchange environment to their original folders.

Friday 11 March 2016

Exchange Server Solutions to ease out the job of an IT Admin

Exchange Server Management is a painful job. If you’re an IT administrator, you know how challenging it is to deal with the day-to-day challenges pertaining to Exchange migration, corruption, server failures and other situations that can’t just be avoided.

In enterprises where the complete business communication relies solely on the Exchange Server, it is extremely crucial to secure data and protect the critical business information that is shared via this calendaring and mail server software - MS Exchange Server.

Keeping this in view, Lepide introduced four robust Exchange Server solutions to aid IT admins with Exchange recovery, auditing, reporting and management.

1. Lepide Exchange Recovery Manager

Lepide Exchange Recovery Manager acts as a comprehensive backup and restore solution that provides an easy-to-use UI to repair corrupt EDB files, folders and even complete mailboxes. It also facilitates quick mailbox content migration.

Advantages:

  • Complete Recovery: From performing partial to brick level restoration and repairing broken EDB files to exportation of items in desired format, this software has got you covered with its exclusive capabilities like OST file restoration, granular mailbox level repair and backup extraction.  
  • EDB to PST Conversion: Performs Live EDB to PST conversion with zero downtime and repairs EDB files in both Unicode and non-Unicode characters. 
  • Data Export: Offers powerful search features, selection criteria, preview and export functionalities for complete recovery. Using this utility, one can export data in any format including EDBs to PST, EML, MSG, RTF, PDF, TXT, HTML etc.
  • Mailbox Content Migration: Facilitates to-and-fro Exchange and Office 365 migration while keeping the data of the mailboxes in original format.
2. Lepide Exchange Server Auditor

Exchange Server Auditor is an auditing and monitoring software for Exchange server which is available as the component of LepideAuditor Suite.

By offering the simplest, fastest and the most cost-effective way to audit and monitor changes done to your Exchange server, this software helps IT administrators to ensure safety of all aspects of their Exchange environment.

Advantages:

  • One can audit both owner and non-owner mailbox access by tracking shared mailboxes. 
  • LepideAuditor mobile application is available for Android phone, iPhone and tablets etc. This allows IT administrators to monitor changes done to Exchange servers anywhere, anytime. 
  • Offers a secure web console. Also, it addresses compliance requirements including adherence to PCI, GLBA, FISMA, SAS, HIPAA, SOX etc. and provides IT enterprises with relevant security compliance reports in desired formats including CSV, PDF, HTML, DOC, TXT etc.
3. Exchange Server HealthCheck

Exchange Server HealthCheck is an integrated component of LepideAuditor Suite.

With its powerful auditing features that keep a constant eye as to what’s happening in your Exchange servers, the software enables IT administrators to constantly monitor the health status of their Exchange environment while ensuring complete security.

Advantages:
  • It keeps tabs on the health status of your Exchange environment.
  • Provides IT administrators with detailed reports and instant alert notifications that are sent on the basis of some important pre-defined parameters like EDB file size, mailbox size, disk space, CPU utilization etc.
4. Lepide Exchange Server Reporter

Lepide simplifies Exchange reporting with information over complete OWA access and granular reporting features. The software helps IT administrators to stay updated about their entire email system usage and avoid any security breaches that may result in exploitation of critical business data.

Advantages:

  • Generates 80+ predefined reports that inform IT administrators about OWA usage, sent/received mailboxes, storage status, system utilization and directory objects.
  • Performs automatic server scanning to fetch data form log files and information stores. 
  • Advanced filtering options to filter reports and export them in HTML, CSV, PDF and DOC formats.
5. LepideMigrator for Exchange

Lepide Migrator for Exchange is a simplest, worry-less, affordable solution to all your migration requirements.

By offering features like pre-migration analysis and load distribution across multiple servers, the software facilitates IT administrators to split migration into stages and avoid any resource disruption issues while performing the transition.

Advantages:

  • Offers real-time alerts to send report summary including migration job status, job success and job failure.
  • Two-way synchronization to help you migrate in co-existence mode.
  • Zero disruption to end users, no downtime and no risk of duplicate migration.
  • Public Folder Migration is possible without double hop transition to the intermediate Exchange server.
The Final Verdict 

By offering all the above cost-effective solutions for Exchange server management, recovery, auditing and reporting, Lepide aims to ease the job of an IT administrator while transforming the complex processes into a simpler one. The trial version of all these tools can be downloaded, tried and tested without paying anything.

Monday 11 January 2016

Facing Exchange Server 2016 Breakdown? Here’s how to recover completely!!

If you’re struggling to survive a major Exchange Server 2016 breakdown, fortunately you’re not the only IT folk who is unlucky. As an IT professional, it’s not uncommon to encounter complete failure of Exchange Server 2016 once in a while. While this may happen due to some unavoidable disastrous situations including incidents like a physical server with a dead hardware component that might be preventing it from booting or a virtual machine with a corrupted operating system, one can always cope up from an Exchange failure by concentrating towards complete data recovery.

This blog discusses a detailed overview of executing a recovery installation for a failed Exchange Server 2016 server & also guides you about how to ensure security while planning to get through the difficult situations pertaining to server breakdowns.

Lay the Groundwork- Carry Out These Actions Immediately After You Encounter Exchange Server 2016 Failure
  1. Install a new instance of Windows Server with exactly the same characteristics as the failed server including the same server name, Windows server version & capacity/performance etc.
  2. Carry Out a recovery install of Exchange 2016 by running setup with the /mode: recover server switch.
  3. Re-apply any custom configuration that may not be automatically re-applied by the recovery install.
  4. Restore the Exchange databases if those volumes were also lost in the server failure.
Get your Server Ready for Exchange Server 2016 Recovery

As the first step, you will require to prepare the server on which you’re planning to restore Exchange Server 2016 server. Below are the steps that you need to perform regardless of whether you’re working on the same server or on a different server.

→ First, you need to install exactly the same Windows Server Operating System and Service Pack Level on the server on which you want to recover Exchange 2016 server.

→ Your storage volumes need to be configured using the same drive letters as the previous server.

→ You’re supposed to join the server to the domain after resetting the computer account first and that is already existing in the Active Directory.

→ Now, it’s time to install the pre-requisites for Exchange Server 2016. The three probable installations of Exchange Server 2016 might include Mailbox Server Role, Edge Transport Role and Management Tools for admin servers or workstations. Amongst these, mailbox server role is the only mandatory server role that you need to install. It is completely optional to install Edge Transport Server role since the coexistence of Mailbox Server role & Edge Transport Server role is not possible on the same Windows Server.

Start Executing the Recovery Install of Exchange Server 2016

Now that you’ve already set everything in place, start copying the set up files of Exchange Server 2016 to another location for easily accessing them on the server. Note that you’re not supposed to make use of this recovery process in order to upgrade or downgrade the server.

Now use the following command on the command prompt to modify it to the folder possessing the set up files of Exchange 2016.

C:\> setup /mode: recoverserver /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms

Now, it’s time to re-impose the custom Exchange Server 2016 configurations

Now use the following command on the command prompt to modify it to the folder possessing the set up files of Exchange 2016. Although your server must be ready to encounter customizations that are specifically applied due to change in virtual directory URL settings, transport setting or the names & locations of databases; one should make a note of documenting and automating the configuration post-installing the Exchange Server.

Ensuring Security is important

While deploying Exchange 2016, it is likely that you would want to re-install at least one SSL certificate for the server. In case you already have multiple Exchange 2016 or 2013 servers with the similar SSL certificate that are installed in your server, you will just need to simply export the same certificate from one of those servers and then import it to the recently recovered server.

Last, but not the least – Recover Mailbox Databases of Exchange Server 2016

If you have mailbox databases and transaction logs that were unaffected from the Exchange server failure and whose configurations with exactly the same drive letters; there’s a slight chance that your databases will successfully mount. But if that’s the other way round, you may require to carry out database recovery using Eseutil.

In worst situations, you may have databases and log files lost in the server failure, you may need to restore them from your previous backup.

The Final Note

Though there’s no foolproof solution that claims to avoid Exchange Server breakdowns, it’s always good to have reliable backups to handle disastrous situations. Undoubtedly, failures are inevitable and when you’re facing the fall, it’s critical to get up and recover as soon as possible.

To make Exchange Recovery process extremely cost-effective and simpler; we have a complete back-up and restore solution Lepide Exchange Recovery Manager to assist you in the toughest times. From exporting and recovering entire mailboxes to selected email items from corrupt databases & granular EDB to PST restoration; LERM has the ability to restore Live Exchange Servers from exchange backups & OST files.

Tuesday 15 December 2015

The importance of Recovery database in restoring Exchange 2010 data

Recovery database, introduced in Exchange Server 2010 as a replacement for recovery storage groups of the previous versions, helps in restoring Exchange databases and recovering data. It aids the recovery of data from backups or copies without hindering the client access to the Exchange. Recovery database, combined with the Windows Server backup, forms a free facility by which administrators can backup, restore, and recover Exchange data.

What is a recovery database?

Recovery database (RDB) is a database that aids recovery operations in Exchange 2010. It mounts the backup of mailbox database, extracts data from it, and thus helps in recovery operation. MS Exchange Power Shell cmdlets are used for the extraction of data. The data extracted so can be saved to a mailbox or folder.

Mailbox database vs. recovery database

A recovery database is a special type of database that resembles mailbox databases in some ways and differs from them in many other ways. Though it is named as a database, it will not be counted the as a database at the time of Exchange licensing (so when you have license for 5 databases, it means you have license for 5 mailbox databases). You can additionally have a recovery database.

Like mailbox databases, recovery database holds database and log files. It needs storage space exactly like a normal mailbox database. But there can be only one mounted recovery database per server (you can have many in the Exchange organization with this restriction in place). It supports restore operations only, and not backup operations. One cannot enable circular logging, cannot run online maintenance, and cannot apply retention policies on them. Also, RDB cannot be used for email communications; email client / user account access to RDB is blocked completely.

When can recovery database be used?

For effective recovery, it is essential that the logical information about the database and its content to be safe in the Active Directory. Then you can use recovery database:

  1. As a part of dial tone recovery (after restoring the database to same server or different server from backup)
  2. For the recovery of mailboxes from backup (after the expiry of deleted mailbox retention period)
  3. For the recovery of mailbox items (purged or deleted)
Steps involved in database recovery

The steps for database recovery using the recovery database are given in very brief:

  1. Create a recovery database  
  2. Restore or copy database and log files to the RDB folder structure
  3. Bring the database to clean shut down state, and mount the database 
  4. Finally, recover the data
Recommendations

  1. Source and target databases must be in the same AD forest
  2. For quick recovery, locate the recovery database in the fastest mailbox server
  3. Before starting, ensure that the recovery database has enough space to restore the mailbox database
Limitations of recovery using the recovery database

Recovery database has some limitations. You cannot use it to restore an entire server or multiple databases. It cannot be used in situations where AD topology rebuilding or modification is required. Using the recovery database of Exchange 2010, one cannot restore mailbox databases of previous Exchange versions.

For recovery using the RDB, one essentially requires a good backup (good thing is that one can use backups created by Windows Server Backup). However, it can recover mailbox data only; it cannot recovery public folder data. And there can be only one recovery database per server. Usage of Exchange Management Shell cmdlets for recovery operations is also a problem as there are no Exchange Management Console (EMC) equivalents.

Professional backup extraction tools

If you think that using Exchange Power Shell and cmdlets are tedious, try Lepide Exchange Recovery Manager. You can extract data from online/offline backups crated by many applications— NTBackup, VERITAS, Symantec, CA ARCserve Backup, and HP Backup (incremental/differential)—using this tool. It is a multipurpose tool that helps in Exchange recovery, EDB to PST conversion, Exchange migrations, OST restoration, and backup extraction. The advantage of this tool is that it supports all Exchange versions and Office 365. You can perform selective recovery in a very simple way too.

Friday 20 November 2015

Exchange Server 2013 – How to Export/Import Exchange EDB mailboxes using Exchange admin center (EAC)

Exchange Server 2013 comes with a functionality that helps administrators to export Exchange mailboxes to Outlook PST files, and to import Outlook PST files to Exchange mailboxes. Import and export actions can be performed using either the Exchange Management Shell or using the Exchange admin center (EAC). The steps given here are based on EAC:

  1. Create a shared folder with full permissions for Exchange Trusted Subsystem
  2. Grant export/import permissions to the mailbox
  3. Export EDB mailboxes to PST or import PST files to EDB mailboxes
Create a shared folder with full permissions for Exchange Trusted Subsystem
  1.  Create a folder (in a location other than C drive).
  2.  Right-click the folder, and select Properties
  3. Go to Sharing tab, click Advanced Sharing.
  4. Choose Share this folder and enter the details; click Permissions.
  5. Under Group or user name, add Exchange Trusted Subsystem; choose Full Control under Allow; click Apply and close all the open dialogue boxes.
Grant export/import rights to the user mailbox
  1. Open Exchange admin center; select the Permissions tab on the left.
  2. Under admin roles, click Recipient Management; click the add sign (+).
  3. Select Mailbox Import Export in the Select a Role window; click Add.
Export Exchange EDB mailboxes to MS Outlook PST file
Now export an Exchange mailbox to a PST file stored in the shared folder.
  1. Open EAC, select recipients, and select mailboxes.
  2. Choose a user mailbox from the list and right-click on it; select Export to a PST file.
  3. Click Browse to select the mailbox.
  4. Provide the path to export the mailbox.
  5. Enter an email to be notified after the mailbox export; click Finish.
Import MS Outlook PST file to Exchange EDB mailbox
  1. Open EAC, select recipients, and select mailboxes.
  2. Choose a user mailbox from the list; click more (…) and select Import PST.
  3. Add a user mailbox for PST import and choose Import to this mailbox option.
  4. Finally, choose email notification option and enter users to be notified on the completion of the import.
Import/Export Exchange mailboxes using Exchange Management Shell

If you are good with cmdlets, you can use Exchange Management Shell to perform all these export/import actions.

EDB to PST conversion using Lepide Exchange Recovery Manger

Lepide Exchange Recovery Manger (LERM) is a professional EDB to PST conversion solution that allows you convert EDB files to Outlook PST files very easily. Also, you can move PST files to Live Exchange using this solution. This tools servers EDB recovery and small-scale Exchange migration purposes too.

Friday 31 July 2015

Exchange Granular Restore – Is recovering individual emails a better way to Database Restoration?

We’ve all worked with Microsoft Exchange Server since the mid-1990s. Time and again, many of us have faced issues with managing corrupt Exchange EDB file data while performing data recovery operations or other tasks. In such a scenario, we’ve seen IT administrators in every organization try different Exchange recovery tools that can make the complex task of fixing database corruption easier and quicker. However, the irony is – you need an amazing software that can wonderfully work to repair exchange database file errors while also ensuring error-free exchange mailbox recovery with all files and folders.

So, how about working with an excellent exchange recovery technology that doesn’t require you to restore entire mailbox stores? Would you not like to use a tool that allows you to restore only those mailboxes that you’re interested in? If your answer is yes, we suggest you to go for utilities that offer Exchange Granular Restore and also let you represent the contents of those mailbox stores for browsing, searching and export. 

What exactly is Granular Exchange Recovery?

Granular recovery is an innovative exchange recovery solution in the form of advanced technology that doesn’t require restoration of entire mailbox or virtual machine in order to recover a single file/folder. Rather, it prompts IT organizations to carry out both file and image-level recovery through a single back up operation without taking secondary redundant backups. Thus, Granular Recovery for Exchange allows mailbox-level backups that recover data even more quickly while drastically reducing the additional time, cost or complexity required while backing up storage resources.  

Since multiple backup solutions need various backups to recover individual files, folders and an entire system, Granular Exchange recovery facilitates you to recover only some specific files/folders/mailboxes that you actually need. Everything is carried out within seconds via execution of a single back-up.

How Granular Exchange Recovery leads to a better way of performing Database Restoration?

With businesses across the world increasingly relying on data residing within virtual servers and applications like Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint, there is an extensive demand for faster and granular recovery of information. Unfortunately, there are only a handful of vendors in the market who’re offering Exchange Granular Recovery in true sense. Lepide Exchange Recovery Manager is one of the few players operating globally with the ability to provide enhanced granular search and recovery for MS Exchange as it supports Exchange servers and clusters while also enabling rapid search and recovery of email, mailboxes, calendars, contacts and other granular elements of exchange.  

With Lepide Exchange Recovery Manager’s granular recovery options, you can-
  1. Zero in on specific mailboxes that you actually want to restore in critical situations like exchange corruption.  
  2. Search, restore, repair & migrate individual Exchange & Office 365 items from an old backup or EDB file. No matter whether a user accidently deleted an email message or removed a calendar item or lost his/her contact lists; LERM helps you recover everything on granular level via allowing brick-level backups.
  3. Extract and create Archive of complete Exchange mailbox anytime, anywhere. It also lets you convert OST  to a PST file so as to ensure a smooth, complete handoff when employees leave or switch jobs.
  4. You don’t need any special backup or metadata to recover individual items or convert EDB to PST. Use Lepide Exchange Recovery Manager to perform regular backups – even those that you created years ago.
  5. LERM lets you filter and search messages based on multiple criteria such as Subject, Message Body, Attachments(Body, Type, Name and Size), From, To across multiple sources like offline EDB, PST, Live Exchange Server and Office 365.
  6. You can restore individually searched items to Live Exchange Mailboxes, PST, EML, MSG, HTML, RTF or Text File.
Conclusion

Whatsoever may be the reason to trigger Exchange database corruption, having a granular restore tool by your side always saves you from disasters like intentional deletion or corruption of important mailbox items in a number of ways. Plus, it makes it faster, easier and quicker to recover any damage to critical information that you might require in the long run. 

Wednesday 15 April 2015

Impact of Exchange database corruption: How to prevent the causes

Corrupted exchange mailboxes are a matter of concern even for some of the biggest IT organizations and mid-sized enterprises relying on email data for managing global business operations. Whilst exchange database corruption i.e. damaged EDB files adversely affect the smooth functioning of organizations as well as global communication within peers; extensive data losses can often lead to disasters amounting to millions of dollars.

Despite all the above consequences of database corruption in MS Exchange server, it is even more disheartening to note that the prevention factor is often overlooked by most of the SMEs with little attention to the data security measures that can be adopted to avoid the disaster.

What you can do to avoid Database Corruption in MS Exchange Server?

As the old adage goes, “Prevention is always better than cure”. Following some preventive measures will not only help you save your critical business data from corruption but also eliminates the need to spend on recovery tools while saving your valuable time as well as human resource required to carry out extensive recovery fixes. Also, detecting and preventing database corruption in MS Exchange Server beforehand saves you from facing troublesome situations like getting frequent error messages which obstruct smooth email communication. All these factors adversely affect the overall productivity of the organization while also leaving a considerable impact on the estimated ROI.

To prevent you from landing into any kind of disaster, we’ve listed some precautions that you can take to avoid your exchange database i.e. EDB files from getting corrupted.

  1. Always use good quality hardware components to avoid physical data corruption.
  2. Configure settings of your server hardware components carefully. If possible, seek help from expert exchange administrators or proceed only after reading comprehensive online help guides. Always keep a regular check on your settings and also update them timely.  
  3. Perform data integrity checks via scheduling maintenance tasks in MS Exchange server. In case you encounter any technical issue, never ignore it and proceed towards fixing the issue as soon as possible.
  4. Avoid excessive use of antivirus software or other file utilities on the Exchange Server computer. Don’t forget to take care of any malware programs that can affect your EDB files. Schedule automatic security checks at regular intervals to put a close check on data security loopholes.  
  5. It is recommended to turn off write-back caching. Though if you’re using it, it is advisable to keep your data protected completely. 
  6. Mitigate the data loss issues via online backups. Always keep a backup copy of your critical database files as well as transaction log files from server so that your data is retained in case of server crashes or failures. Don’t forget to check whether your hard disk is in an operable state while you create your backups and also verify your online backups timely. 
  7. Always make use of reliable data recovery utilities in case of serious data loss issues. 
Although preventive measures can’t always guarantee 100% data protection, they still play a considerable role in saving your valuable data from corruption while also forbidding the probability of extensive data losses resulting in damaged EDB files. However hard you try to protect, your database may get corrupted and you may require reliable recovery utility tools to access your corrupt data. 

Lepide Exchange Recovery Manager ( http://www.lepide.com/exchange-manager/ ) is one such software program that can help you recover your MS exchange Server corrupted database even from extensively damaged EDB files. With LERM, your data can be restored from corrupt offline EDB files as you can also extract single or multiple mailboxes from it to Live Exchange, PST, EML, MSG, HTML, RTF, Text File or even Office 365. From reviving your original data even in extreme data loss issues to retaining back the original performance and accuracy of your workable database, LERM completely eliminates the need of brick level backups by facilitating granular restoration from EDB private and public folders to restore entire mailboxes or even selective mailboxes.