Re: Thoughts - bare metal disaster recovery

I suspect those two are somewhat different, as backup and image aren't
really the same. Backup is essential, image is nice.

I've got a raid 5 set that is in trouble, and I'm in the process of imaging
it off to a USB drive as I type. The server is still up, and I'm using it's
internet connection while the image is being written, as Paragon
Drive-Backup does a live imaging.

In a few minutes, it'll be done and I'll be swapping out some drives and
rebuilding the array, then bringing the image back. I don't anticipate any
issues, and hope to have the whole process complete in about 2 hours.

If I only had a backup, it could still be done but wouldn't be anywhere near
that quick - as an OS and SP would have to be laid down first in order to
restore.

Allthough my hardware isn't changing, this process can work fairly well even
when it does, so long as you do a bit of prep with raid drivers and nic
configurations. In a true disaster, you wouldn't have an opportunity to do
that - so it would have to be dealt with after-the-fact. That's a bit
messier, but still can be done. Windows has become very good at sorting the
hardware, with a little help. The last time did an image restore, it was to
different hardware and the system wouldn't boot due to a different raid
subsystem. But a repair installation got past that block, and then it was a
matter of sorting the nics and getting rid of any non-present hardware that
was carried forward.

A possibly complicating factor that I haven't yet had to deal with is a
repair installation of an SP'd OS, when a pre SP OS disk is on hand.

--
Les Connor [SBS Community Member - SBS MVP]
-----------------------------------------------------------
SBS Rocks !
----------------------
"Tell me and I'll forget. Show me and I'll remember. Involve me and I'll
understand." - Confucius


"David Elders" <david_elders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:eZD1$qrTGHA.4952@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Gonna be trialling some stuff in the near future like

Acronis TrueImage Server
http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATISWin/

Yosemite Backup Standard Master Server for MS SBS
http://www.yosemitetech.com/products/standard/core/sbs_master.htm

and any others I can find that claim bare-metal recovery...

Cheers,


David


"David Elders" <david_elders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23GvCl9qTGHA.5496@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I was meaning more specifically as to what people's opinions were as to
the best [for whatever reasons] bare-metal restore strategy was.

From
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/chats/trans/sbs/sbs0630.mspx,
MS say:

"backing up and restoring to new hardware is only supported if your
motherboard/cpu combo are similar and the disk subsystem is also similar
(meaning same brands etc)"

...which in itself is fine enough although its not gonna be all the time
[unless you're planning on having a spare box sitting 'just in case']
that this is possible 'in the field'

This isn't just for our own situation - its so we can recommend a best
practice set-up to clients...

Please understand, I'm coming at this from the angle not of knocking the
SBS Backup - far from it.

We've restored 100% successfully a gubbed Server to the same hardware
within 2.5 hours from putting CD1 of SBS into the drive to it rebooting
without error in a fully working condition. We've also restored to a box
with different mb/processor/memory, although similar drives that went far
better than we thought it would - basically there were issues with the
[different] NICs that were partially resolved - Server was got back to a
90% working situation where only DHCP and apparently anything related
were unresolved [although from all the settings throughout the box seemed
fine]. Compared to the previous versions of SBS backup, 2003 is the
absolute dogs bits and we're enormously pleased with it.

We're more looking for any pointers to being able to use the SBS backup
to restore to bare-metal [i.e. any tips and tricks that we are unaware of
that may have got the previous test working fully instead of 90%] or any
other alternatives, be they imaging, virtual pc-based, member server with
AD being used then to swing back to another box [which would obviously
work but the time for the clean install with Swing on the 'new' box would
potentially be an issue for such a Server-down-type incident...

Cheers,


David





.

Relevant Pages

  • Restoring Exchange backup from SBS 2003 onto Test Server via VMWar
    ... I'm attempting some D&R practice runs using SBS 2003 and VMWare server, ... I'm utilizing two methods of backup, one is the built-in SBS backup wizard ... Few hours later, restore complete, reboot server, ...
    (microsoft.public.exchange.setup)
  • Re: Backup strategdy...
    ... My recommendation would be to use ShadowProtect Server 3.0. ... There's an SBS ... What this would do is one full backup a week, ... you'd boot off the CD and restore from backup. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: Disaster Recovery: Planning Ahead
    ... we had to restore our server today [reasons aren't ... SBS 2003 Premium w/ SP1 ... had to opt for restoring from the last backup pre-problems. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: Thoughts - bare metal disaster recovery
    ... we're looking at the likes of imaging also - purely for the speed of restore ... Backup is essential, image is nice. ... The server is still up, ... Les Connor [SBS Community Member - SBS MVP] ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: How to use Windows Backup?!!
    ... I had a server a month ago that had a trashed AD. ... I ran the restore and all was good. ... Yes I restored without incident from a good SBS backup. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
Loading