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Verify applications on the target

The application verification process confirms that an Exchange or SQL application database on the target is viable for failover.

The application verification process can only be performed on active connections that are in a good state and are not failed over.

1. Verify that you have installed the Volume Shadow Copy Service SDK.
2. Verify that your current volumes have adequate space to contain snapshots of your target. These snapshots will be used to revert the target back to its pre-test state after you have completed your application verification.
3. Disable target path blocking for your application protection connection.
4. If you are verifying Exchange and you are running the Application Manager from a machine other than the source or target, you must install Exchange System Manager on that machine.
5. From the Application Manager, select Actions, Verify Target Data.
6. There are four main sections of the Database Verification window.
• Status—The top of the window displays the overall status of the application verification. You can click on the status description for more detailed information.
• Results—Initially, the state of the application verification is unknown, as indicated by the question mark icon. When the databases or stores have been successfully mounted, the states will update to green.
• History—This area shows the sequence of verification events.
• Options—You can select which services are tested and specify scripts to run during the test.
• Start core services only or Start core resources only—Only the core application services/resources will be started when the test is performed.
• Start selected services or Start selected resources—All of the services/resources you configured for application failover will be started when the test is performed. Use this option if you have an application add-on such as BlackBerry.
• Script to run after target is online—Specify a script, located in the Double-Take Availability installation folder on the target, to run after the target application is online. A sample script to move users, that you can modify to fit your environment, is available in the \Samples sub-directory of your Double-Take Availability installation.
• Script to run before restoring normal protection—Specify a script, located in the Double-Take Availability installation folder on the target, to run before stopping the application on the target. A sample script to move users, that you can modify to fit your environment, is available in the \Samples sub-directory of your Double-Take Availability installation.
7. Click Test to begin the application verification. The Status, Results, and History will update during the test. When the Status is Target online, the verification is complete. You can perform any custom testing at this time.
8. If you have any problems during the test, click Undo to revert the target to its pre-test state. All snapshots and items created for the verification test will be removed. If you do not have Volume Shadow Copy installed, the snapshots used during the test will not be removed.
9. When you have completed any custom testing, click Continue to revert back to the pre-test state. All snapshots and items created for the verification test will be removed. If you do not have Volume Shadow Copy installed, the snapshots used during the test will not be removed.

If you have scheduled Double-Take Availability snapshots, they will continue to be created during the verification process. You should not use any of these snapshots from this time period because the target data may not be in a good state.

If you are using Windows 2008 R2 and Double-Take Availability snapshots, any snapshots that you took prior to performing the verification process will be unusable for an actual failover. To work around this issue, take another snapshot immediately after the verification process. Once the additional, post-verification snapshot is taken, all of the previous snapshots will be usable for future failovers. This issue is fixed in the Windows 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 release. If you install that release, you will not have to worry about the extra snapshot after the verification process.

If you are using Exchange 2007 SP2 URP 4 or earlier on Windows 2003 Service Pack 2 x64, the databases will become corrupt if you run the verification process more than once. If you want to run the verification process multiple times, make sure you have the latest Windows and Exchanges patches applied.

If you have taken multiple Double-Take Availability snapshots on the target and then verified the target data, in some instances the SMTPSVC service may not start after failing over to a snapshot. If possible, failover to a snapshot taken after the target data was verified. If that is not possible, you will have to start the SMTPSVC service manually on the target after failover.