Thanks to our policy of storing your data in well-known file formats, you can...
This type of restore-ability is not only a great convenience (you can restore quickly and easily on any Windows machine), but it becomes critically important when you need to store your data in the long-term for legal and compliance reasons.
If you've ever had a situation where you've been unable to restore your data because it was locked away in a proprietary format and the original software no longer works (or worse still - whose vendor has gone out of business), you'll understand.
If you used the NTBackup Engine to backup your data, then simply run ntbackup.exe on any Windows 2000, XP or 2003 computer. You then catalog your backup, and select what to restore and click Start Restore. It's easy!
There are two methods of restoring data from a Windows 2008 system.
The first method is to use the Windows Server Backup Recovery Wizard to mount an image and restore individual files or entire volumes. A simple wizard (pictured below) is provided to make this process easy.
The second method is for a bare metal restore - use the Windows DVD (or a recovery CD) to perform a restore from your image. This is an automated process - simply configure a few simple options and Windows will automatically rebuild the system.
There are 3 different options available when restoring Exchange Server data:
In the event of a major corruption or disaster, you can perform an online restore of your Exchange Server, as outlined in our Exchange White Paper.
For minor restore jobs like restoring a full or part of a mailbox, you can either perform an online restore of your Exchange Server to a Recovery Storage Group and then use Exmerge to migrate across the relevant mailbox, or simply use Exmerge to restore directly from your Exchange Mailbox Backups.
Simply open your mailbox PST file on any computer with outlook installed, and drag-and-drop the relevant items to copy them back.
For the more advanced scenario of migrating an Exchange database to a new server, you also have the ability to forklift the Exchange databases from your file-backup of the Exchange data files.
You have 3 options for restoring SQL Server:
This gives you great flexibility in the restore process, and as system administrators know, the more flexibility and options you have in a time of crisis, the better.