Moving 800GB MS Exchange 2010 Database

[CougTek]

Not an Exchange expert here.

I have to move the database of our MS Exchange 2010 server because I have to modify (read "destroy" and "recreate") the volume currently hosting it. Can I simply create a network share on a fast server with a fat network pipe and move it there using this guide or is it a bad idea?

I'll have to move it back afterward once again. Everything is connected with 10G Ethernet and the targeted network server would either be one with an HP MSA2040 SAN or another with a StorageSpaces array composed of SSD and 10K SAS drives. Both should be fast enough. I don't have enough spare space on the current server to create another volume to move the database.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm afraid I can't be of much use, I disavowed myself of managing any e-mail system about 7 years ago. That said, MS per-incident support cost is low enough ($500?) that tasks that are rare and high-risk (this counts) are worth calling them in advance and having them do it.

 

[CougTek]

I've asked for help in form of paid support, but it was denied by the management. It is now 8:45pm on a Saturday, I'm at the office and I have to do this NOW. There's nothing like learning new stuff on production setups.

 

[CougTek]

I've fixed my problem. I've create a new virtual drive in Hyper-V and chose to copy the content of the physical disk containing Exchange'S database. Done. No database migration needed. Physical disk to virtual disk replacement instead.

 

[ddrueding]

Nice work. Asking for and being denied resources is always a great way to cover your ass. Moving to virtual is awesome, but AD can make restorations more of a PITA than they should be.

 

[Howell]

Glad you got it fixed. Sorry I was unavailable before. I've had a good bit of experience with this in the past year moving from 2003 to 2010 to 2013. Since you could afford the downtime, obviously, and were in a time pinch I would also have moved the database rather than migrating to a new database. Migrating adds the benefit of being able to flush out any mailbox corruption, but in your case not essential to the goal and would slow you down a bit. Good job.

 

[mubs]

Back in 2007, my employer migrated from an older version of Exchange to the then current version; 2007, I thing. They hired a consultant and paid big bucks, but the migration was screwed up anyway and was a major disaster with customer emails lost and what not.

I hope it went well for Coug.

 

[CougTek]

Yes, all in all, it went well. The MS Exchange part at least, was a complete success. Moving back the Hyper-V VM replicated by Veeam from the backup cluster to the main cluster, not so much. Everything is still operating from the backup Hyper-V cluster this morning. I'm less and less a fan of Veeam. I don't know how well it works for VMWare, but for Hyper-V, our version (7) isn't good enough to be called "enterprise-ready". Not with all the glitches I've stumbled on.

 

[Mercutio]

Every time I try to do something with Veeam on ESXi, it either won't work or it's ridiculously slow. I've had better luck just directly enabling SCP and copying that way. Maybe it's better if you have licensed servers, but at that point you also have access to a better suite of tools in the first place.

I only have three Exchange installations left that I deal with. The largest is probably ~30 users. In your position I would've just done a backup and restored to the new volume, a process I've done enough to be comfortable with it.

 

[Howell]

Yes, all in all, it went well. The MS Exchange part at least, was a complete success. Moving back the Hyper-V VM replicated by Veeam from the backup cluster to the main cluster, not so much. Everything is still operating from the backup Hyper-V cluster this morning. I'm less and less a fan of Veeam. I don't know how well it works for VMWare, but for Hyper-V, our version (7) isn't good enough to be called "enterprise-ready". Not with all the glitches I've stumbled on.

I don't handle storage, virtualization or backups here and I think that might help me understand your post better. Is the exchange server itself running somewhere you don't want it?


Since you are not now under a time crunch I would suggest migrating the mailboxes to new databases. At the same time I would break up into smaller databases. For reference i have 1000 mailboxes and I prefer mailbox moves because i run 24/7, I can do the bulk of the work dring the day, and it has a much kinder failure impact.

 

[CougTek]

I've not been clear enough. The MS Exchange VM is now fine and it's also running from the correct cluster.

However, I had other virtual machines to move in order to extend a shared cluster volume. I never did it before and I wanted to move the VMs stored on that volume before modifying it just to be sure I wouldn't lose anything. The copy to the backup cluster worked fine, but I've had (and still have) issues when I tried to move back the VMs from the backup cluster to the main cluster. The only system I did not move was the virtual machine hosting the Exchange Server. That is currently the only one that's running where it should.

Glad to know Veeam is also a piece of junk on ESXi. Since it's a universally rotten product, I won't feel bad for blasting the peddler who sold us the idea of using it in the first place.

 

[ddrueding]

Every time I try to do something with Veeam on ESXi, it either won't work or it's ridiculously slow. I've had better luck just directly enabling SCP and copying that way. Maybe it's better if you have licensed servers, but at that point you also have access to a better suite of tools in the first place.

I only have three Exchange installations left that I deal with. The largest is probably ~30 users. In your position I would've just done a backup and restored to the new volume, a process I've done enough to be comfortable with it.

I have and use Veeam on ESXi as well. I can agree with Merc's sentiments. From arrays of SSDs with 800MB/s+ transfer rates, over 10GbE, to arrays of HDDs with 500MB/s+ I'm seeing 30MB/s and it is claiming the bottleneck is the source.

I do have the basic licensed product, and will be upgrading to fancier NAS stuff to allow vMotion, HA, FT, etc.