Restoring Exchange Server 2003 on SBS 2003

At least it is pretty easy to get a 'dial-tone' Exchange working by simply deleting all the mail databases. Whenever Exchange fails it is never going to be a relaxed atmosphere so it always a good idea to at least try Exchange disaster recovery a few time in a test environment before having to do it in real life.

Nice clear video. you missed one critical point though.
The MD and everyone else screaming that they cant send their emails and the world is comming to an end if you dont get the exchange up and runing in the next 5 mins. If only you could restore in a nice relaxed atmosphere like this. Cracking video thanks for your time.

I think going forward smart business owners will realize they shouldn't be running a mail server (or any server for that matter) in their business. They will simply out source everything and access it via the Internet. That way an off site Exchange server can be set up 'correctly' without the business owner having to worry.

Agreed.

I think as time goes on and storage becomes more affordable, even new SBS owners will be able to afford to meet the best requirements.

Your points are very valid but in the SBS world price is always a major component so that is why it is as it is.

Glad to hear you like the videos.

In a perfect world yes that is certainly best practice but in the world of most SBS customers this is not really possible. In most cases also SBS Exchange is usually much smaller in size when compared to enterprise Exchange. Again, in a perfect world you would never run Exchange on a domain controller but we need to make some compromises to keep the price to a minimum. In most cases Exchange works very well on SBS given the limitations.

Just in case my previous comment came across as being some sort of flame, its not. I love videos like these as they are a great help to fellow admins.

Good stuff! 8o)

Its bad practice to have the log files and the information store on the same array.

Best practices say that 1 x RAID-1 should be for the O.S. 1 x RAID-1 should be for Log Files and 1 x RAID-5 should be for the Information Store.

When we used to run SBS2003 I did the default install, but now we run seperate Exchange 2003 server I understand more about why the best practices are there. I always encourage SBS users to consider their storage.

That's what they call it. Basically it means you can get Exchange working so that at least the user can send and receive new emails. Sure the phone has lost all its speed dials but at least it can make and receive phone calls. That's my guess why they call it 'Dial tone' Exchange.

I love the comment 'Dial-Tone Exchange Server'