I have a question about creating AD and Exchange lab environment?. How do you guys create a lab (production mimic)? AD we can easily create additional DCs and move it to an isolated lab environment/network and seize the FSMO roles. How do you mimic Exchange environment in the lab? Is it possible to bring all mailboxes without any data

Hi, You don't do anything in production to create Test environment. You don't bring anything from Production to Test It's just Test Environment with test mailboxes, Public Folders, Distribution Group etc.... Do not think of moving or something from Prod to TestGulab Prasad, My Blog | Z-Hire Employee Provisioning App

I want to mimic production environmental in the LAB. I hope you understand that! Have you ever done this?

Hi It's a bit tricky to do but there are a few ways to achieve this. Something that I have done before is recovered an CAS server (setup /m:recoverserver) in a lab but if you have multiple servers with DAGs etc this method gets a bit complicated. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd876880.aspx Steve

Thanks Steve. We are using Exchange 2003. Any suggestions? I came up with this option - http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Recovering-Failed-Exchange-2003-Member-Server-Using-Disaster-Recovery-Switch.html

That msexchangeorg link is essentially the same thing as /recoverserver is with the new product. If you rip out one of your production domain controllers, it will leave a mess in DNS and the AD metadata. You might consider a simple backup/restore instead. Or you can remove the metadata and dns junk: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/216498 Once you do the Exchange restore you can mount an empty database similiar to a dialtone restore. Then you'd have your AD config, an Exchange server, but no user mailbox data. Mike Crowley | MVP My Blog -- Planet Technologies

How about like this, Getting a Standalone DC with the Same domain name and GC name. Restorte a System State Backup to it -- Do A Recover Server for Exchange. -- Mount the Database from Backup -- LAB should be ready, I haven't tried the AD part alone, But it should work if my thought is rightSatheshwaran Manoharan | Exchange 2003/2007/2010 | Blog:http://www.careexchange.in | Please mark it as an answer if it really helps you

No need to build an empty domain. The restore from ntbackup/whatever should be sufficient. Mike Crowley | MVP My Blog -- Planet Technologies