Domain Controller Backup

[k3lvin]

Not so long ago we only had one DC in our network and the server failed, luckily we managed to restore it other whiles we could of had massive problems.

We have now build a secondary DC to run along side it just in case it fails again. My question is, what if they where to both fail? Is there a way to backup all of the Active Directory onto disk and out of site so if they where to both fail, we could build a new DC server from scratch. I heard that you can do a system state backup, then restore it onto a different server, run dcpromo /adv and choose to restore from disk, rather than network but when I tried this it did not work, is this the correct way to restore a DC?

Any suggestions would be excellent

 

[k3lvin]

(Forgot to mention, we are running a Windows 2003 R2 domain enviroment)

 

[58sniper]

If they both fail, it's the same as if you had one DC and it failed.

If you have properly equipped hardware, and they are properly configured, secured, and managed, the likelihood that you'd have two simultaneous failures means you'd likely have a complete site failure (natural disaster or other such problem). That's assuming you're not virtualizing them all on one set of hardware.

If you have multiple sites, it's generally a good idea to have a DC in the remote site(s) as well (generally, without going into a crap load of scenarios).

There is a whitepaper at Microsoft about designing for disaster recovery, and will discuss your possibilities.

DC failure and building other DCs has been discussed here quite a bit, and you might find some additional pointers by searching this site.

Pat Richard MVP

 

[jet042]

To take the system state you can use this line. We have it set as a scheduled task that runs weekly:

ntbackup backup systemstate /F "REMOTE OR REMOVABLE DRIVE\Adbackup.bkf" /J "NAME OF JOB" /D "DESCRIPTION" /V:yes /M normal

/F sets the target file name

/J sets the name of the job for logging purposes

/D sets the label for the backup

/V:yes checks for disk errors that might have occurred while the files were being copied

/M sets the type of backup to be done

More details are available here:

http://technet2.microsoft.com/windo...a769-46d2-9e26-f4d16f0261f81033.mspx?mfr=true