Table Of Contents
How to Use Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup Network Command?
In Exchange Server, the network is integral for a healthy running cluster. The Database Availability Group (DAG) health relies on the network. Any minor changes or degradation of the network may affect the replication of data and the health of the Exchange Server cluster.
To get information on the status of the Database Availability Group (DAG) network in your system, you can use the Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupNetwork command. This command can provide information about the network that is serving your Exchange Server cluster.
The command’s output shows issues (if any) with the network configuration. With this command, you can easily identify the subnet which is causing the issue, thus helping to resolve it as soon as possible.
About Database Availability Group
A “Database Availability Group” or a DAG refers to a group of Exchange servers. These are designed to offer high availability for mailboxes by failing over to a redundant copy of the database when a server fails.
On the other hand, a group network command refers to a set of commands that can be used for managing the network connectivity within a DAG.
It allows the servers to communicate and replicate data successfully and effectively. In short, the Group Network Command is the network infrastructure that supports DAG functionality.
Key Points
Here are a few things you must know about a DAG and Group Network Command –
- A DAG refers to a cluster of Exchange Mailbox servers. These are continuously replicating database copies across different servers. It ensures. When one server fails, another takes over immediately.
- There should be reliable network connectivity within the group for the DAG to operate effectively. The connectivity helps replicate data and coordinate failover operations.
- Group Network commands are the
- PowerShell commands help in the management of the network configuration inside a DAG. Its responsibilities include checking network connectivity between servers, taking note of the health of the cluster networks, and adjusting network settings that are specific to the DAG.
How to Use Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup Network Command?
You can execute the Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupNetwork command from any node in the Database Availability Group (DAG) from the EMS (Exchange Management Shell) window. However, you need to have certain permissions to run the command. To know the permissions and roles you need, run the below PowerShell command.
Get-ManagementRole -Cmdlet Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupNetwork
As you can see (in the above image), you need these permissions:
- Database Availability Groups
- View-Only Configuration
- 0365 Support View Config
However, if you need to know the exact permissions and roles you need to run the Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupNetwork command, run the below PowerShell command.
$Permissions = Get-ManagementRole -Cmdlet Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupNetwork
$Permissions | foreach {Get-ManagementRoleAssignment -Role $_.Name -Delegating $false | Format-Table -Auto Role, RoleAssigneeType, RoleAssigneeName}
After assigning the required permissions, you can run the Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupNetwork command (see the example below).
Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupNetwork | FL
The above command will give all the information about the Database Available Groups (DAG) you have. The FL parameter will list all the available parameters.
You can also run the command against an availability group (see the example below).
Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupNetwork -Identity <dag name> | FL
This will get you all the information from the logged-in server.
You can also run the command against a specific Database Availability Group (DAG) and a specific server (see the given example).
Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupNetwork -Identity <dag name> -Server <server name> | FL
The command output will show the information and status of the subnets and networks.
The different types of states of the subnets are:
- Up: This means that everything is in order. This is the expected operational status.
- Down: This means that the network interface is either down or not functional. This also means that the communication is lost with other servers/hosts. The main reason is that all the network interfaces that use the network subnet are either failed or unreachable.
- Misconfigured: This state means that the subnets for the Database Availability Group (DAG) do not match their network configuration. The subnets must match the configuration. This mainly applies to the ReplicationEnabled and IgnoredNetwork values.
- Unavailable: The subnet network is not enabled for replication, or the Database Availability Group (DAG) members are inactive or unavailable.
Here are the states of network interfaces you can see in the command output.
- Up: This is the expected operational state. It means that everything is good.
- Failed: This means that there is no communication from the interface to the external hosts or network interfaces. Although the interface is connected to the network, it is unable to communicate with the rest of the network or nodes in the cluster and external hosts.
- Unreachable: The Exchange system is unable to communicate with any network interfaces that are up. This means that the cable is unplugged or blocked.
- Unavailable: The mentioned interface is disabled for replication, or the Database Availability Group (DAG) member associated the interface is not active.
- Unknown: The unknown error message means that the Exchange Server is unable to determine the state of the interface.
As you can see, you can get more information about the network which is servicing your Exchange Server cluster. If the network is up and running but misconfigured, this will not be listed. You can create the script to run the command every 5 minutes and send an email when the status of the subnet or network is not up. This will surely help you to identify and resolve the problem before it has been reported.
To Conclude
There could be a lot of issues that can disrupt the services and affect the data integrity. Although the server is running, there could be misconfigurations or replication issues. The database would be damaged in case of sudden interruption of services.
Under similar cases, you can take the help of exchange recovery applications, like Stellar Repair for Exchange to Recover Exchange Database. With this application, you can open many different Exchange Server databases of any version and of any size.
After a quick or deep scan, you can granularly export the user mailboxes, shared mailboxes, disabled mailboxes, user archives, and public folders to another live Exchange Server database on the same server or a new server. You can also export the EDB data to PST and other file formats, as well as Office 365.
Read More:
