Disaster Recovery Setup Query

[wrathyimp]

Hi all,

I am planning to have a disaster recovery setup/plan for my company.
Our current setup is:
2 node exchange cluster, with 1 node as our File Server, and other as DNS server.
Details: NodeA has Exchange cluster service and DNS services, NodeB has Exchange Cluster service and File resources services, connected to a disk array with two partitions (exchange & users resources).

Required disaster setup:
We need to plan a stand-by server which will host all of our services (as mentioned above), while connecting to the disk array to all partitions. Will have the following services:
AD
DNS/DHCP
Exchange
User resources (file sharing)
So We will be having :
1 Server Hardware with 2 Disk Array Connectors.
New Server will have same name and IP of the current File server i.e. NodeB,
Setup Virtual Exchange server server with the same Name and IP.

Now my concerns and doubts:
First, Is the above setup OK?
How can I restore my AD & exchange to the disaster server at time of disaster?
How can I have a backup of the AD to restore on the disaster server?

Any sugeestion or correction, most welcome.

Thanks

 

[markdmac]

http://www.shadowprotect.com/

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

Work SMARTER not HARDER. The Spider's Parlor's Admin Script Pack is a collection of Administrative scripts designed to make IT Administration easier! Save time, get more work done, get the Admin Script Pack.

 

[58sniper]

You'd further protect yourself by removing all non Exchange functions from that cluster.

Pat Richard
Microsoft Exchange MVP

 

[wrathyimp]

Thanks for your comments,

First I would like to know the above disaster plan, it fesible to deploy?

markdmac :
We do have Veritas Tape backups (BackExec) so will they be helpful in restoring the system in minimum possible downtime?

58sniper :
Could elaborate on your comments, as to remove which services?
As I can understand, we should have a seperate AD server, but for File server, no clue.

And during the time of this setup, we were short on financial resources, so we had to merge things up.

Thanks again.

 

[58sniper]

An Exchange server is best left as just that: an Exchange server. Adding other services such as file, print, DC/GC is just robbing the Exchange server of valuable resources.

Having an Exchange server as a file server is asking the server to do a LOT of I/O. That's seriously thrashing your disk system, and likely hampering your performance.

Pat Richard
Microsoft Exchange MVP

 

[markdmac]

Define MINIMAL. With shadowprotect you can have your system running as a VM or restore to other hardware with ease. Furthermore you can have backups running continuously throughout the day so there is less data loss.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

Work SMARTER not HARDER. The Spider's Parlor's Admin Script Pack is a collection of Administrative scripts designed to make IT Administration easier! Save time, get more work done, get the Admin Script Pack.