Schema Backup/Restore 1

[jockojem]

Hello All

I am planning on extending the schema of the root domain in our forest this week by running Exch2003 ForestPrep. Now - I may be a little over cautious - but I am concerned that I don't have a rollback plan in case of catastrophe.

I understand that the schema partition of AD cannot be marked authoritative for restore. I am a little confused then as to what my options are.

Any one with any ideas, experience, input - I'd be glad to hear.

TIA

Jem

 

[SilviaS]

As far as I am aware you need to backup AD as a complete unit where all of it is backed up System state, if all does go wrong restore AD complete and do the authoritive.
Not sure wether the restore would need to be done on the schema master though.

 

[jockojem]

Thanks for your response Silvias.

The way I am feeling about this now is that as the Schema Master is a single as opposed to Multi master role there will no other writable copies of the schema in the forest with higher version numbers a System State restore will do the trick.

Any one else care to comment on my logic?

Jem

 

[SilviaS]

remember roles can always be moved from one server to another, if it does go wrong you can restore and set it as schema master?

 

[jockojem]

That's not really what I was concerned about. My worry is/was that as the schema partition cannot marked as authoritative for restore that if i have to roll back the extensions a replicated copy from another dc would be able to supercede my rollback.

 

[mlichstein]

Schema updates are atomic. They either succeed or fail. If forestprep fails, this is not a catastrophic event. The domain will continue to run. You just will not be able to install Exchange until forestprep completes successfully. The schema changes that were committed will be ignored.

When doing a forestprep to upgrade to Windows 2003 (a little different than Exchange forestprep) the original recommendation was to remove the schema master from the network before doing the updates.

This is no longer the recommendation because of the initial synchronization requirements. A FSMO role holder must replicate with at least one other replication partner before it starts adverstising that role.

 

[jockojem]

Thanks for the reassurance - I guess I knew that - I just always fear the wacky and the catastrophic!