XADM: Public Folders Are Re-Homed When You Restore the Pub.edb File

During a disaster recovery situation, the public folders in an Exchange Server organization may be re-homed under the following circumstances:

• The information store is restored to a recovery server.
• The directory service or information store consistency checker is run on the recovery server.
• The information store service is stopped on the recovery server.
• The information store database files are copied to the production server and the information store service is started.

When the information store service is started on the production server (after the Pub.edb file is copied from the recovery server), public folder replication takes place between the production server and the rest of the public folder servers in the organization. After replication has occurred, all unsecured public folders in the organization are re-homed to the production server where the databases are restored.

After the public folders are re-homed, clients may not be able to access the public folders. Also, unlike other public folder re-homing scenarios, in this case, no administrators in any site can administer the re-homed public folders.

The recovery server, on which the information store was restored, did not have a copy of the folder from the production server. Therefore, when you run the directory service or information store checker on this computer, the directory service or information store checker does not have information about all of the other servers and mailboxes in the organization. As a result, the public folders are re-homed to the recovery server. In addition to re-homing the public folders, because a directory object for the public folders is not found in the folder on the recovery server, a new directory object is created for each re-homed public folder.

The following events are logged on the recovery server on which you run the directory service or information store consistency checker: When the Pub.edb file from the recovery server is copied to the production server and the service is started, the information store recognizes that the public store is restored from another server and it logs the following event which says that the replication will not occur. This event is not accurate because replication does occur. After the information store service is started on the production server, public folder replication starts. Because the public folders on this server have been modified more recently than those on the other sites or servers, the changes are replicated out to the other servers.

When the information store on a server in another site receives the changes, which indicates that the folders that were previously homed on it are now homed on another site, the information store removes the directory object for that public folder from the folder because it assumes that the folder in the new home site contains the directory service object for the public folder. This folder change is replicated to all of the servers in the organization. Eventually, all of the public folder and folder changes are replicated throughout the organization. After this is finished, the public folders appear to be homed in the site where the public store is restored, and the re-homed public folders do not have a corresponding directory object.

Because there is no associated directory object, when you try to get the properties of a re-homed public folder, you receive the following error message in the Exchange Administrator program: