Copy machine on a regular basis ? 1

[TSch]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering:
Is it possible to kind of Schedule a cloning job on a daily basis so that I'm able to always have a fresh copy of a certain machine available ?

Background:
We are looking for a way to bring our print server back up in case of complete system loss as fast as possible. So instead of using standard backup mechanism like Cider (where it takes a certain amount of time before a restore would be completed) it would be nice if there was a way not to backup this machine but to automatically have the vsphere clone it on a regular basis so that in the situation mentioned above we would just have to "power on" the clone and everything would be fine ...

Or are there any other ways that would help us ?

Regards,
Thomas

 

[baddos]

If you just want to do a quick restore, try a snapshot. It won't save you from a disk loss, but if you're worried the os going down because of a patch or something that would do the trick.

 

[unclerico]

scheduled tasks via vcenter or powershell

I hate all Uppercase... I don't want my groups to seem angry at me all the time! =)
- ColdFlame (vbscript forum)

 

[NortonES2]

Think he means scheduling the cloning of a physical machine.

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If it doesn't leak oil it must be empty!!

 

[TSch]

@unclerico:
That's exactly what I need.

Thanks a lot everyone !

I know it was an easy question but this whole VMware thing is still quite new to us ... ;-)

 

[NortonES2]

Think he means scheduling the cloning of a physical machine.

Or maybe not!!!

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If it doesn't leak oil it must be empty!!

 

[TSch]

The Scheduler was indeed a good starting point, for it even provides an option for cloning a machine on a regular basis ...

However: While the first schedule completed successfully, all the following schedules fail because the name of the target machine already exists ... :-(

Any idea how we could get around this ?

Regards,
Thimas