Re: Thoughts - bare metal disaster recovery

Hi David,
I just completed a disaster recovery scenario. The company has a spare box
and wanted it ready for an emergency. It will be placed at another site. If
the disaster occurs they would use the recovery server while purchasing new
equipment, at that time we would use
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;884453 to migrate
the domain to the new hardware,

Production Server - HP ML350G4 4X36GB HD RAID5 - SBS2003, ISA2004, SQL2000
with Solomon, TMCSMSV3.
Backups use SBS2003 Backup to HP Ultrium 215 External Tape Drive.

Recovery Server - HP LC2000 6X18GB HD RAID 5 with HP Ultrium 215 Tape

Bare metal restore to recovery server following the latest SBS2003 Backup
Restore Documentation.
At the initial reboot after ntbackup has finished booted to "Safe Mode with
Network"
Logged on using my administrator account, not the default administrator.
Opened Services.msc, disabled all HP specific services that applied to the
production server.
Opened Network and assigned ip addresses to network cards as they were on
the production server. System complains about assigning addresses that it
believes are already assigned. Phantom NICS.
Booted to real mode.
Logged on, continue following the SBS2003 Backup Restore Documentation.
Delete Shadow Copy Job from scheduled tasks etc.
All services started without issue.
Could connect to Windows Update, Companyweb worked Email etc.
All scheduled jobs run, SQL Maintenance Jobs run, SQL Databases can be
accessed, TMCSMS Updates etc.

IT WORKED :)

Phantom NIC's still exist. On one restore I went through the registry and
removed all reference to NICS from the production server. Still couldn't
remove them completely. This is the only issue I have experienced.

Sincerely
Wayne Kent



"David Elders" <david_elders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23ot9uXyTGHA.4340@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi Les,

Thanks for all that.

Agreed that they're not the same and are kinda for different tasks to be
fair. Backups we're looking at having multiple copies of [done live to the
other drive in the box and copied to the external USB drive for offsite
storage] but I'd also like to have as fast as possible a 'restore' to the
alternative h/w in the event of a disaster hitting the main box. That's
why we're looking at the likes of imaging also - purely for the speed of
restore aspect.

We've tested Paragon
We're about to test the other 2 I mentioned; Acronis and Yosemite

Its actually been one of our other bods doing the testing however - good
to hear that Paragon does a live image that doesn't require the stopping
of anything [remember how older stuff needed Exchange stopped? uurrrggh!]
though...

Will post back our own findings here in the hope others can benefit also.

PS - are there any good references/resources out there on how to address
problems with restoring to different hardware such as with NICs etc?

Cheers,


David




"Les Connor [SBS Community Member - SBS MVP]" <les.connor@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote in message news:%23MwmKluTGHA.792@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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









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