risks in adding a BDC?

[lowbot]

NT4 is a little before my time, so please bear with my newbie questions.

We currently have an NT4 domain, which in the near future will be a 2003 domain, in the meantime Id like to get a backup of the domain controllers. It looks like ntbackup on 4.0 only works with tape drives and doesnt backup open files. We have backupexec 12.5 but it doesnt support 4.0.

I am thinking the best approach would be to create another 4.0 server in a virtual machine and add it as a bdc. I can then shut down that VM and keep it as a backup. Im assuming that in a disaster it can be brought back up and made a PDC.

We currently have a PDC and a BDC they are all on 10 year old equipment. The PDC runs on a drive thats only about 6 or 7 years old and the BDC runs on the orignal drive. needless to say Im afraid either of these will not be able to reboot. This is why Im afraid of trying to back up their drives with ghost.

Can I just add a BDC and be able to backup our domain? I was playing with the installer and noticed that it does the synchronization before I can even install service pack 6a. Is there a way to add 6a before doing the synch? Does it matter? Is there a chance this might bring down the whole domain? If so I'll just chance taking an offline ghost image of the BDC. Thanks

 

[cmeagan656]

Have you looked at Drive Snapshot (

http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/)

for an image backup?

We run it on our one remaining NT box. A reboot of the server is not required to run it, in fact you do not even have to close other programs (see

http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/down.htm)

unless you do a 'normal installation'. You can also back it up to a different server if required.

At €89 for an emailed server license the price is right too.

Cheers.

 

[lowbot]

Actually, Im considering using the free vmware converter tool and doing a physical to virtual conversion of that server.

I still am not sure if its safe to add another BDC. I cant seem to figure out how to do this and install service pack 6a at the same time.

 

[SimonDavies]

It's perfectly safe to install another BDC, just install the OS and when prompted for the installation type choose BDC, join it to the domain and then service pack it.

You can even have a workstation machine running the OS (older rather than newer ones tho as there are driver issues with newer hardware).

As far as service packing goes... just add the service pack once built, it won't do anything to the domain at all.

FYI, we still use NT4 in my company, until Dec 21st we were only running NT4, due to the upgrade we needed to install BDC's for that added security (our original DC had an inplace upgrade carried out on it, the new bdc was offlined once synced for backout purposes.

NT4 Domains are a really simple beast when compared to AD and don't have nearly as much reliance on having the SP installed straight away, the only time you're likely to have an issue is if you were also going to be running network services that communicated with other servers, as long as it's just acting as a BDC you're fine.

As far as VMware converter goes, it's not a bad bit of kit for the Wintel platform but I would really add your new bdc before doing anything with the existing machines.

Out of interest are you running VI3 at all or haven't you considered your virtualisation platform at the moment?

Simon

The real world is not about exam scores, it's about ability.

 

[stfaprc]

This is one vote AGAINST using VMWare for an NT4 Server.

Just a disaster by us, fortunately we were testing it and not depending on it to work.

Though the problems it has left behind just might enable me to replace the NT box

 

[victorv]

hi,
exist many ways to migrate NT4 Domain to 200,2003,2008,...
but at my customers, I have seen that the best way, is to
build a new domain 200x on a new hardware, (if you want
you can use scripts to copy users, or Microsoft tools,
to import users. When your new domain/server is ok, you
can round all PC, remove from old domain and put in new.

Many people will dislike this method, it depends also
from the number and location of your clients, but I suggest
this becouse it is an alternative way, it may be heavy,
but it is sure and clean.

ciao
vittorio