Exchange 2010 cross mailbox database search

Question

Hi there,
I have a customer who has an interesting scenario. They have an exchange 2010 server with 3 mailbox databases. They want to do a search for a text string across all databases which is reasonably straight forward but they also want to take that search back
in time and do a search across the databases as they were at points in time in the past (1 year and 2 years ago). They have backups to recover and we are thinking that we can recover the databases at the points in time required but we're unsure whether the
search works across recovered databases.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this or advise on how this might be achieved?
Thanks,
Rich

Answer 1

Assuming you're aware of the concepts surrounding Microsoft's recommendation to use Exchange Native Data Protection, and you're needing to search beyond what is currently protected.  Otherwise, just use that.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd876874(v=exchg.150).aspx#ENDP
So here's the issue with your request:  Exchange Search uses the indexes, which would either need to be restored or re-built after a restore.  so you'd need to do your search, and repeatedly mount restored databases, probably in an isolated environment
since i'd assume you'll want to reattach restored mailboxes to existing users, ensuring the index is in good shape and re-do your search.  Sounds like a huge PITA.  Does your backup software offer the functionality you're looking for?  Microsoft's
DPM software only offers per-mailbox restores, but perhaps you've got something more sophisticated.
This is all complicated, which is why Microsoft recommends to use NDP.
Mike Crowley | MVP
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Baseline Technologies