To limit the amount of time you spend troubleshooting software-related problems during a disaster recovery, maintain current software records, including:

• A list of your software vendor's contact information, such as support phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and Web pages for online support.
• A list of software upgrades (such as service packs) and software patches that are installed on your servers. This list should be organized by date. This list should also include the dates that System State backups are made between software upgrades. Important Maintain a chronological list of when you installed software upgrades and when you backed up your System State data. Typically, a Windows 2000 System State backup backs up all protected operating system files, including many DLL files. When you restore the System State backup, it is possible that the System State data, including the DLL files, will be out of sync with the software versions that are installed on the server. However, if you maintain a list of current software updates, you can refer to this list to install the software updates in the same order they were installed prior to the System State backup being restored.
• A record of your server's configuration, including:
  • Hard disk configuration information, including a list of each hard disk partition with the volume names and sizes of the partions (the Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit utility Dump Config [Dumpcfg.exe] provides this information) as well as a summary of what is installed on each partition.
  • Computer name of the server.
  • Exchange 2000 organization name.
  • Administrative group name to which the Exchange server belongs.
  • Storage group names and database names on the Exchange server.
  • List of any static IP addresses, subnet masks, and default gateways used by the server.
  • LegacyExchangeDN value of the administrative group to which the Exchange server belongs.
  • If your topology includes Exchange 2000 clusters, you should keep a record of the cluster configuration information. To back up this information, use the Microsoft Cluster Tool (Clustool.exe). Clustool.exe is available in Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit.
  • Logbooks that are kept next to each server in your Exchange 2000 organization. Table 1 illustrates a simple software logbook for a server. Table 2 illustrates a logbook for the restoration process of that server. Note that the event processes appear in the same order in both tables.

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Standard Edition
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, Premium Edition
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, Standard Edition
• Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server