AS2000 DR Plan

[scbonner384]

Hello all,

I have just joined a new company in a support position and have been tasked with creating a disaster recovery plan. We have a wide range of servers but I have been tasked with only W2k servers. This company uses Arcserve 2000 V.7 and I have absolutely no experience in this type of job.

I have setup a GFS Backup Schedule for 3 servers to date but am kind of lost on how a DR is performed using ArcServe or if it should be performed using other tools and then using Arcserve for Data recovery only. Does anyone have a test plan, DR guideline or even just a pointer to somewhere I can find basic to detailed information on this topic. The more detail I can get the more grateful I will be

Thank you all very much,

Scott

 

[fritz4000]

When the DR procedure works for Windows 2000 it is great. When it doesn't, it is good to be familiar with Microsoft's Windows 2000 recovery procedure. The DR procedure is machine specific. It is meant to go back to the same machine. During recovery you need to think that if the old hard drive can be placed in the new machine, will the new machine boot? If the answer is yes, recovery will work. If no, you will probably get blue screens after the restore. DR can only be performed with full backups. You would then need to restore the incremental data afterwards. Check CA's website to see if they have the BrightStor ARCserve 9 manual for DR. It gives a lot of detail about the DR process and is not much different from ARCserve 7. To get Microsoft's procedure, go to

http://www.microsoft.com/technet

and search for windows 2000 disaster recovery. You should come up with a couple of good documents. It basically is rebuilding the machine with the same name, not joining the domain and not installing Active Directroy if it was on the machine prior. Restore your data volumes and then your system volume. Then you will need to restore the system state. In trying to bring back an exchange machine, I had to restore the system state twice. The first restore seemed to make the machine see it was an ADC machine and the next put the data back.

Good Luck.

 

[scbonner384]

Thank you Fritz that was very informative. I have just one question to make sure I am clear on this. Are you saying that I can only use ArcServe DR on the same machine? I only ask because if there were an actual disaster on site (i.e. Fire, flood, earthquake, or gang of crazed toddlers from daycare across street.) we would most likely not use the same hardware platform to rebuild.

Thanks again,

Scott

 

[cq]

The Arcserve DR option that gives you boot disks requires the same hardware - it's like doing a Ghost (image) of one machine to the other - if the hardware is different you will run into all sorts of compatibility/driver problems. The advantage of Arcserve DR is that you just need to boot from your disks and put the tape in the drive.

If you have a full backup you can restore to a different machine, but you will need to load the operating system and Arcserve before you can start the restore.

Pete

 

[scbonner384]

Pete,

Thank you for your input. I hope I have a handle on the Arcserve DR plan and will work on a procedure for it if we go to the same equipment.

As for the later DR option you gave. If I do this type of restore should I be skipping the restore of the System State and the Registry and if I do won't I loose all my users, Shares, Apps, Etc. Also, will restoring from a full backup recreate all these necessities or will I have to keep a hard copy list so I can key everything back in. OUCH!!! I guess you can tell by now that I am pretty new to the whole DR world. Not real sure why I was tasked with this project but I will learn it eventually.

Thanks again for all the help I have been given,

Scott

 

[cq]

If you're running Win2000 with Active Directory then your user accounts will be safe. As for shares and apps, I don't know. My view is that in a complete disaster there won't be too much emphasis placed on user access rights and so on, what matters is that files and emails that are crucial to the survival of the company can be restored somehow.

 

[Sofestibeest]

Scott,

I'm working on kind of the exact project. Emergency Disaster Recovery with arcserve 2000 on a windows 2000 network and Exchange.

Could you help me by sending me a template of your report for study purposes?

Thanks,

Robert
feestbeest@enschede.com