Restoring AD/Exchange 2010 environment DAG (ESX-to-ESX)

Task: restore Exchange 2010 environment after complete loss of it (or to restore in isolated environment within different VLAN for testing)

Steps:

1. Restore (do not clone) domain controller, re-ip (if you host DNS outside of AD in production, but not in isolated environment, have DNS added to restored domain controller, restart Net Logon service)
2.  Clone Exchange servers – CAS, HT, Mailbox Servers, re-ip them.
3.  Fix DAG (through “Failover Cluster Manager”) : 

                  a.       Delete unneeded servers (if you cloned not all servers)

                                                               i.      (You might need to remove Exchange Servers objects using ADSIedit)

b.      Fix IP addresses (highlight the DAG name/Cluster Core Resources/Expand cluster DAG name/IP Address)

c.       Right click the DAG name (under Cluster Core Resources) /Repair cluster

(If one of the cloned nodes of DAG cluster can’t get the Cluster Service started, evict that node from the cluster, remove cluster feature, reboot the node, re-add the cluster feature, re-add the node to the cluster)