Can information stores be mounted/dismounted via command line? 1

[mikeQA]

Hi,

I've search the net and the msexchange forums and so far it looks like I am not able to do this via the command line. I am wanting to automate mounting/dismounting the information store(s) for testing purposes in Perl. I'm testing backups/restores with Symantec Netbackup (and eventually TSM) so until this can be automated I've got to do this manually.

Is it possible to do this in Exchange 2003? What about 2007 since I am now testing on that as well? You would think they'd have this capability in the application just for backup/restore purposes even if it was using ntbackup.

Thanks in advance.

Mike

 

[TechyMcSe2k]

http://hellomate.typepad.com/exchange/2003/12/command_line_st.html

Maybe this helps. It is VB and not Perl as u mention in the other posting. Maybe Perl can call a VB Script??

 

[mikeQA]

Thanks for the info. That was I believe the same site I found months ago but couldn't re-find it. I don't know if it can be called from within perl but I forwarded the page to a coworker who knows vbscript and is doing a lot of perl here so maybe he can come up with something.

Thanks again for the link! I bookmarked it this time! ;-)

Mike

 

[58sniper]

In 2007, you'd have to spawn a powershell command, but it can be done.

Mount-Database

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998871(EXCHG.80).aspx

Dismount-Database

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124936(EXCHG.80).aspx

But more importantly, WHAT are you testing? Databases should be mounted while they are backed up.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[mikeQA]

Hi Pat,

I'm testing Veritas Netbackup (or Tivoli TSM) backup/restores of the information store(s) that I have created. For 2003 I have first storage group which has mailbox and public folders and second/third storage group which are just additional mailbox databases. Using LoadSim to generate data in them. For 2007 I have 5 storage groups, 4 for mailboxes with unique directory names/database file names and 1 for public folders/database file. Part of my testing is doing backups/restores using the above mentioned products. I got roped into doing Exchange 2003 last year (was doing MS SQL and NDMP testing already) and now they added Exchange 2007 to the mix now since some customers are running it.

Mike

 

[58sniper]

I haven't tried NetBackup in a while, but the backing up of Exchange is typically done when databases are mounted. Dismounting them would cause downtime.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[mikeQA]

Hi Pat,

Yes dismounting them would cause downtime. This is a test environment I'm working in. Corporate does their own backups of their server/stores. I am just making sure the data that was backed up/deduped can be restored (mailbox and information store testing, fulls, incrementals, time consuming!). Takes more time that I expected it to. Now with multi-streaming I'm doing multiple information stores on both 2k3 and 2k7 exchange which = more time spent on it!

 

[Zelandakh]

Netbackup needs the stores dismounted to restore?

 

[mikeQA]

For doing the information stores, as far as I have seen, yes. For mailboxes usually no.