How to Move a Database in a Single Copy Cluster

  • Article

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 will reach end of support on April 11, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

 

Applies to: Exchange Server 2007, Exchange Server 2007 SP1, Exchange Server 2007 SP2, Exchange Server 2007 SP3

This topic describes the recommended way to reconfigure a database by using the Exchange Management Shell. If necessary, you can change the location of the single copy cluster (SCC) database. In a SCC configuration, a single set of database configuration information applies to all nodes. This creates the additional complexity of verifying that shared storage is available at the new location on all of the clustered mailbox server's nodes.

The same procedure is used to reconfigure the location of a mailbox or public folder database.

Before You Begin

To perform the following procedure, the account you use must be delegated the following:

  • Exchange Server Administrator role and local Administrators group for the target server

For more information about permissions, delegating roles, and the rights that are required to administer Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, see Permission Considerations.

You have the option of using either the Exchange Management Shell or the Exchange Management Console to reconfigure the database. In addition, each option has variations as to when the copies of the data are moved.

Note

An Exchange Management Console procedure will be provided in a future release of this documentation. If you choose to use the Exchange Management Console procedure, make sure that the databases are dismounted prior to performing the move operation.

Procedure

To use the Exchange Management Shell to reconfigure a database in a single copy cluster configuration

  1. Use the Move-DatabasePath cmdlet to change the configuration in the Active Directory directory service. This cmdlet moves the data on the active server, and it moves the active copy of the data. It also dismounts the database, if it has not already been dismounted, while the move is occurring.

    Note

    The new location must not be the root directory of a volume.

    Note

    You can use the ConfigurationOnly option in the Move-DatabasePath cmdlet. This option prevents the command from moving the data. If you use this option, you are strongly encouraged to explicitly dismount and then mount the database. After completing the move, you must move the data. The advantage of this sequence is that if the move can be accomplished without copying the data, the procedure can be completed more rapidly, thus reducing the length of any outage.

  2. After the move operation is complete, use the How to Configure Disk Dependencies for a Single Copy Cluster on Windows Server 2003 procedure to verify that the physical disk resources are properly associated with the impacted database resource.

For More Information

For more information about the Dismount-Database cmdlet, see Dismount-Database.

For more information about the Move-DatabasePath cmdlet, see Move-DatabasePath.

For more information about the Mount-Database cmdlet, see Mount-Database.