Server Imaging

[lbarron]

Hi,

Does anyone use server imaging as a backup solution?

Just wondering what the best type of storage system would be for this type of backup.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Lee

 

[people3]

HI,

It depends on what the server is and is used for:

eg Exchange or AD.

Also how much data is on the server, and will this be the only backup.

If so you need to consider

Full system restore and will it always be restored onto the same hardware


Or how easy will it be to recover just one file.

 

[GrimR]

ShadowProtect or VMware. Both are different as stated in people3's post.

MCITP:EA/SA, MCSE, MCSA, MCDBA, MCTS, MCP+I, MCP

 

[lbarron]

Hi,

Thanks for the replies.

We would want to backup around 6 Windows Servers using this method, a mixture of AD, Exchange File/Print, Application servers.

Ideally it would always be restored to the same hardware but hardware failure may require us to restore a different server.

We use tape backup at the moment which is slow and painful, we just want to speed things up and allow a backup of the operating system aswell.

Thanks

Lee

 

[pagy]

Don't use imaging as a backup for domain controllers, the moment you take the image it will be out of date as AD is constantly being updated and if you restored that image you would get USN rollbacks........

What tape solution are you using at the moment, are you running it over fibre or scsi? What backup software are you currently using?

Paul
MCTS: Exchange 2007, Configuration
MCSA:2003
MCSE:2003
MCITP:Enterprise Administrator

RFC 2795 - The Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite (IMPS)

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2795.html

 

[Zelandakh]

I've been using tape backups for 20 years and don't find them painful. What throughput are you getting and over what quantity of data?

 

[dberg35]

You could use Backup Exec and backup to a series of hard drives or look for an online back solution.

 

[GrimR]

I'm I bit on the overkill when it comes to backup as we dont use SAN's or a budget that allows for clustering, VMWare or VM, so I use Backup exec 12 to LTO4, Ntbackup for AD servers to LTO2. SQL, exchange and data to exterenal 1.5 TB USB on each server including the Linux box, and one office using Shadow protect.

MCITP:EA/SA, MCSE, MCSA, MCDBA, MCTS, MCP+I, MCP