Applies to: Exchange Server 2010 SP3, Exchange Server 2010 SP2

Topic Last Modified: 2012-07-23

A server switchover is a task that you perform to move all active mailbox database copies from their current Mailbox server to one or more other Mailbox servers in a database availability group (DAG). This task is performed as part of preparation for a scheduled outage for the current Mailbox server.

Use the EMC to perform a server switchover

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the"Mailbox database copies" entry in the High Availability Permissions topic.

  1. In the console tree, navigate to Server Configuration > Mailbox.

  2. In the result pane, select the Mailbox server you want.

  3. In the action pane, select Switchover Server.

  4. In the Switchover server database copies dialog box, do one of the following:

    1. Accept the default setting of Automatically choose a target server (in which case, the system automatically selects the best Mailbox server for each database being switched over), and then click OK.

    2. Click Use the specified server as the target for switchover, click Browse to select a Mailbox server, and then click OK.

Use the Shell to perform a server switchover

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the"Mailbox database copies" entry in the High Availability Permissions topic.

This example performs a server switchover for the server MBX1. The system automatically selects the best Mailbox server for each active database on MBX1.

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Move-ActiveMailboxDatabase -Server MBX1

This example performs a server switchover of the Mailbox server MBX4. When the command completes, MBX5 hosts the active copy of the databases that were previously active on MBX4. Because the MountDialOverride parameter isn't specified, MBX5 mounts the databases using a database auto mount dial setting of Lossless.

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Move-ActiveMailboxDatabase -Server MBX4 -ActivateOnServer MBX5

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Move-ActiveMailboxDatabase.