Exchange 2010: Database Copies with PowerShell

I needed a quick and dirty method to add database copies to other servers in an Exchange 2010 Database Availability Group (DAG).  I had three servers, each with 10 databases.  Each one of those databases should have a copy on the other two servers. 

Now, this is painful if you have to use the GUI to do it – not that it takes a lot, but it’s time consuming.  The Add-MailboxDatabaseCopy cmdlet is very helpful in PowerShell, but still I wanted to automate it since my naming conventions were pretty standard.

So, I wrote a PowerShell script to automate this process.  Essentially, the script has a few variables and I dome some loop magic to drop everything into place. 

$servers = "E2K10MBX01", "E2K10MBX02", "E2K10MBX03"

$databases = "DB1", "DB2", "DB3", "DB4", "DB5", "DB6", "DB7", "DB8", "DB9", "DB10"

foreach($database in $databases)

{

       foreach($server in $servers)

       {

              foreach($copyserver in $servers)

              {

                     "Adding mailbox copy for $server-$database to $copyserver..."

                     Add-MailboxDatabaseCopy -Identity $server-$database -MailboxServer $copyserver -ErrorAction "Continue"

              }

       }

}

This script is quick and dirty for a lab environment.  Keep in mind that this doesn’t do any error checking and there is no validation to see if a database is already homed to a server.  This just uses the cmdlet to try to create the database copy; if it is successful, you’re good to go.  If it fails, the script just keeps on rolling.  No harm, no foul.