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I have to re-seed several databases and am looking into opportunities to reduce my bandwidth requirements.

When I issue the command get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup there is a feature called "Third party replication"

[PS] C:\Scripts\Windows>Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup nfpdag01 | fl


RunspaceId                             : 28ca92b9-f397-4de4-a299-c0ff2d430dd7
Name                                   : dag1
WitnessServer                          : nycexcas01.company.com
WitnessDirectory                       : c:\data\FileShareWitnessForExchange
AlternateWitnessServer                 : txvmexcas01.company.com
AlternateWitnessDirectory              : c:\data\FileShareWitnessForExchange
NetworkCompression                     : InterSubnetOnly
NetworkEncryption                      : InterSubnetOnly
DatacenterActivationMode               : DagOnly
StoppedMailboxServers                  : {}
AllowCrossSiteRpcClientAccess          : False
OperationalServers                     :
PrimaryActiveManager                   :
ServersInMaintenance                   :
ServersInDeferredRecovery              :
ThirdPartyReplication                  : Disabled  <----------- SEE THIS HERE
ReplicationPort                        : 0
NetworkNames                           : {}
WitnessShareInUse                      :
AdminDisplayName                       :
ExchangeVersion                        : 0.10 (14.0.100.0)
ObjectCategory                         : nfp.com/Configuration/Schema/ms-Exch-MDB-Availability-Group
ObjectClass                            : {top, msExchMDBAvailabilityGroup}
WhenChanged                            : 7/5/2013 5:44:25 PM
WhenCreated                            : 5/27/2011 11:32:21 AM
WhenChangedUTC                         : 7/5/2013 9:44:25 PM
WhenCreatedUTC                         : 5/27/2011 3:32:21 PM
OrganizationId                         :

Will any third party replication technology allow for lower bandwidth usage on a stretched DAG? What technologies enable this?

makerofthings7
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  • What kind of "third party" technologies are you looking at? QoS? Compression? SAN based replication? – Rex Jul 09 '13 at 15:58
  • @Rex I have no idea, it's part of the DAG configuration, though I appreciate everyone's quick downvote and close efforts – makerofthings7 Jul 09 '13 at 16:05
  • You are, essentially, asking a shopping question. – mfinni Jul 09 '13 at 16:06
  • I'm asking for a technology... – makerofthings7 Jul 09 '13 at 16:07
  • You're asking for products, that you would have to buy. You'd have to call EMC (assuming you're using their storage) to see if their 3rd-party product works better (for your needs) than Microsoft's. If you're using some other SAN replication technology, you'd have to talk to them. You haven't even told us what storage or replication technology you've already got. – mfinni Jul 09 '13 at 16:11

2 Answers2

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It's a hack, but you could use something like QuickPar. Here is what you do:

  1. Dis-mount the database on both ends.
  2. Use QuickPar to generate 1 recovery block using the source database.
  3. Use QuickPar to validate the target database using the files generated in step 2. It will tell you how many recovery blocks you need.
  4. Use QuickPar on the source database to generate the additional needed blocks.
  5. Mount the source database.
  6. Delete the contents of the log directory on the target server.
  7. Use the files generated in step 4 to complete the repair of the database.
  8. Mount the target database.

If you need to eliminate downtime, then you could use volume snapshots instead of dismounting the source database.

longneck
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1

If you want to use that feature in Exchange 2010, you need to create the DAG with that flag enabled. If you want to use it now, I believe you would need to create a new DAG and you won't be able to change it back.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd979799(v=exchg.150).aspx

By default, a DAG is designed to use the built-in continuous replication feature to replicate mailbox databases among servers in the DAG. If you're using third-party data replication that supports the Third Party Replication API in Exchange 2013, you must create the DAG in third-party replication mode by using the New-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup cmdlet with the ThirdPartyReplication parameter. After this mode is enabled, it can't be disabled.

There are some providers that hook into the API but most of the ones I've looked at are tied to the storage backend you are using to replace the built-in Exchange replication with their own.

Rex
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  • Are you aware if the alternate replication approaches are more efficient, or any consolidated way to get the big picture of what problems 3rd party replication solves? – makerofthings7 Jul 09 '13 at 19:46
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    This would be highly dependent on how the 3rd party software implements their replication. Using array based replication CAN be more bandwidth friendly by doing things like dedupe at the array/block level - but again, this is VERY open-ended question and the reason people (including myself) have down-voted it. – Rex Jul 09 '13 at 20:24