Introduction

Microsoft Exchange 2007 and 2010 now provides the ability to query when the Last full backup was completed on a particular mailbox database using powershell cmdlet.

Microsoft provides a cmdlet to show the status of Mailbox Database – the following article will show how to incorporate these as rules into Argent for Exchange.

First we will explain the cmdlets that we will use to collect the Backup Status Information

Backup Completion Cmdlets

$dbs = Get-MailboxDatabase -status | format-table name, lastfullbackup

Use the Get-MailboxDatabase cmdlet to view status information about mailbox databases.

This will show when the last full backup was completed.

Creating A Powershell Script Rule

First create a new Rule Group and then Rule

We will look at creating the Backup Completed Rule here – Paste the Code (see Appendix A) into the main window as shown below.

We must load the Powershell Snap-In for Exchange 2010 when we run this script as these cmdlets are only available in the Exchange Management Shell

Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.E2010

We must load the Powershell Snap-In for Exchange 2007 when we run this script as these cmdlets are only available in the Exchange Management Shell

Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.Admin

We can now TEST this rule against an Exchange Mailbox Server with the following result shown below.

Rule:        PS_BACKUP_STATUS

Server:      MBXSERVER

Test On:     ARGENT

Test By:     argent

Local Time:  Wed, 11 Aug 2010 18:29:50

UTC Time:    Wed, 11 Aug 2010 06:29:50

Rule Result: Not Broken



---------------------------------- Trace ------------------------------------------



18:29:26.652 Start testing server MBSERVER1 using 64-bit Monitor Engine



18:00:00	DB2	09/23/2010 01:00:04

18:00:00	DB3	09/23/2010 01:00:04

18:00:00	DB4	09/23/2010 01:00:04

18:00:00	DB1	09/23/2010 01:00:04

18:00:00	DB5	09/23/2010 03:30:04

18:00:00	DB6	09/23/2010 03:30:04

18:00:00	DB7	09/23/2010 03:30:04

18:00:00	DB8	09/23/2010 03:30:04

18:00:00	SGJ	09/23/2010 04:20:04

In this case the rule is NOT BROKEN as all of the BackupTests Passed, if any of these Databases were not backed up in the last 7 days we would trigger a BROKEN Rule.

This RULE can now be added to a relator and run against a Monitoring Group that contains MAILBOX servers.

Appendix A – Backup Status Powershell Script

$dbs = Get-MailboxDatabase -status | where-object {$_.Server -eq $PSPlayer.TargetServer}



foreach ($db in $dbs)

{

$status = $db.name + " " + $db.lastfullbackup

$PSPlayer.WriteStatus($status)



if  ($db.LastFullBackup -lt ($(Get-Date).AddDays(-7)))

	{

	$message = [System.String]::Format("Last Full Backup for '{0}' was on '{1}' ", $db.name, $db.lastFullBackup)

	$summary = "Last Full Backup older than 8 Days"

	$PSPlayer.FireEvent($message, $summary, $result)

   	}

}