Maintaining Documentation on the Exchange Environment

When performing system backups , many administrators merely back-up servers and store tapes in-house or offsite, believing that the backup tape is the end goal of the backup process. Unfortunately the backup tape is only part of the necessary process involved in creating a successful recovery process. As identified in the last section, there are many different scenarios that require a data restoral, and in many cases, a full image restoral of an Exchange server is not the best solution to meet all situations.

A complete restoral of information presumes that the server the information being restored to is identical to the server that was backed up. If identical hard drive controller, network adapter, system board, and other server components do not exist, a full image restoral of a server will likely fail to recover from a server reboot ”loaded drivers fail to enable. In these situations, the organization may choose to install the core Windows 2003 operating system on a new server with all the appropriate drivers for the new system, and then just restore the data.

To successfully restore just the Exchange data to a server, however, the server name , the domain the server is attached to, and the drive mappings must be identical to the server that was backed up. If the information is unknown, the ability for the organization to restore the information becomes a challenge.

This section covers the process of documenting key sets of information about each server, the server configuration, and the network information that can be used in the future as a server system requires recovery.

Server Configuration Documentation

Server configuration documentation is essential for any environment regardless of size , number of servers, or disaster recovery budget. A server configuration document contains a server's name, network configuration information, hardware and driver information, disk and volume configuration, or information about the applications installed. A complete server configuration document contains all the necessary configuration information a qualified administrator would need if the server needed to be restored and the operating system could not be restored efficiently . A server configuration document also can be used as a reference when server information needs to be collected.

The Server Build Document

A server build document contains step-by-step instructions on how to build a particular type of server for an organization. The details of this document should be tailored to the skill of the person intended to rebuild the server. For example, if this document was created for disaster recovery purposes, it may be detailed enough that anyone with basic computer skills could rebuild the server. This type of information could also be used to help IT staff follow a particular server build process to ensure that when new servers are added to the network, they all meet company server standards.

Hardware Inventory

Documenting the hardware inventory on an entire network might not be necessary. If the entire network does need to be inventoried, and if the organization is large, the Microsoft Systems Management Server can help automate the hardware inventory task. If the entire network does not need to be inventoried, hardware inventory can be collected for all the production and lab servers and networking hardware, including specifications such as serial numbers , amount of memory, disk space, processor speed, and possibly operating system platform and version.

Network Configurations

Network configuration documentation is essential when network outages occur. Current, accurate network configuration documentation and network diagrams can help simplify and isolate network troubleshooting when a failure occurs.

WAN Connection

WAN connectivity should be documented for enterprise networks that contain many sites to help IT staff understand the enterprise network topology. This document is very helpful when a server is restored and data should be synchronized enterprisewide after the restoral. Knowing the link performance between sites helps administrators understand how long an update made in Site A will take to reach Site B. This document should contain information about each WAN link, including circuit numbers, ISP contact names , ISP tech support phone numbers, and the network configuration on each end of the connection, and can be used to troubleshoot and isolate WAN connectivity issues.

Router, Switch, and Firewall Configurations

Firewalls, routers, and sometimes switches can run proprietary operating systems with a configuration that is exclusive to the device. During a system recovery, certain gateway connections, configuration routing information, routing table data, and other information might need to be reset on the restored server. Information should be collected from these devices, including logon passwords and current configurations. When a configuration change is planned for any of these devices, the newly proposed configuration should be created using a text or graphical editor, but the change should be approved before it is made on the production device. A rollback plan should be created first to ensure that the device can be restored to the original state if the change does not deliver the desired results.

Recovery Documentation

Recovery documentation, such as the server build document mentioned previously, can become reasonably complex and focused on a particular task. Recovery documentation aids an administrator in recovering from a failure for a particular server, server platform, specific service, or application. Recovery documentation is covered in Chapter 32.

Updating Documentation

One of the most important, yet sometimes overlooked, tasks concerning documentation is updating the documentation. Documentation is tedious , but outdated documentation can be worthless if many changes have occurred since the document was created. For example, if a server configuration document was used to re-create a server from scratch but many changes were applied to the server after the document was created, the correct security patches might not be applied, applications might be configured incorrectly, or data restore attempts could be unsuccessful . Whenever a change will be made to a network device, printer, or server, documentation outlining the previous configuration, proposed changes, and rollback plan should be created before the change is approved and carried out on the production device. After the change is carried out and the device is functioning as desired, the documentation associated with that device or server should be updated.