Summary

Exchange disaster recovery is not trivial. The impact of the disaster, the time taken to recover, and the degree of success of that recovery depend on how well the recovery has been planned for, how well the plan has been implemented, and how well the plan has been practiced prior to any actual disaster taking place.

Exchange disaster recovery is not "set and forget." Things change over time. The volume and reliance on messaging, the tolerance to outage, the tools available, the hardware available, and the operators available are all variables within the overall plan, which should be reassessed regularly.

SBS 2003 with Microsoft Exchange contains sufficient and powerful tools for successful backup and restore of Exchange messaging data. Third-party tools are also available that may enhance or simplify some of the processes; however, at the very least the recovery operator should be comfortably familiar with the included tools because situations may occur where the third-party tools are not available.

With proper planning, implementation, and practice, the most catastrophic disaster can be recovered from.