Windows server backup/restore to dissimilar hardware

[Clarksville]

I want to back my Windows 200x servers up in a fashion that I can do a bare metal restore to dissimilar hardware.

Example scenarios: A true disaster (fire) and I need to recover severs to new hardware.

OR a more common occurance of upgrading server hardware and need to migrate Windows to a new box.

I've heard rumors of this being accomplished this with products like Veritas or Legato, but my attempts to follow those instructions have failed miserably. Any recommendations?

 

[birky]

You will always have problems with BMR (Bare Metal Recovery)being restored to dissimilar hardware because of drivers etc....you also need to keep your images up to date.

CommVault have released something called 1-Touch server which takes a different approach, I have a good whitepaper explaining it all if you want to give me your details somehow.


PinnacleData Systems (UK)

 

[comtec17]

BakBone software has a great product that will allow you to take a Bare Metal Recovery backup while the server is online and hot.

http://www.bakbone.com/products/disaster_recovery/

Veritas also has a product called "Bare Metal Restore" or BMR that is not as good as the product above.

When recovering to dissimular hardware, make sure you restore to alike CPU's, but all other hardware can be different.

Make sure after the restore/recovery and prior to reboot, you remove all drivers from the old hardware to include RAID Controller, NIC, Video, etc.. and install new Drivers. Once all drives are completly installed, reboot. I recommend doing this is a controlled test environment first and writing down your procedures.

 

[ortica104]

Hi ,
Try to use Brightstor Arcserve backup 11.5 , this is an easy product to backup / Restore and Disaster recovery option , if You need to recovery in different HW please take care Your old Raid driver , for video and nic driver , with arcserve there are not problem .

 

[hogmaster01]

Hi!
Cristie Software has a product that is
made to work with any backup software.
It also has a HWwizard that helps you to change
hal during the restore. It is very good
at changing the disk device driver. It also
can handle advanced volumes and Citrix servers.

They have a free trial as well.

check

http://www.cristie.com

/regards Daniel

 

[bschneider987]

Hi -

VMWare also has the ability to do this with their ESX server. Pretty cool stuff - you can boot to multiple server platforms, run multiple servers at a time, and best yet, because VMWare handles the driver issue with their own boot software, you can actually move a server (1 VM file) to another any other computer with VMWare ESX server installed. Downside is dealing with some software venders - they will refuse to work with you unless their software is installed on a totally seperate server. VMWare claims to be compatible with most major vendors. For my next new application server, I'm going to consider buying a large server with plenty of processing power and memory and run multiple OS's on it. Considering CPU utilization runs very low on most of our servers, I think it will save in hardware costs. VMWare is $5000 for a 2 processor server, with unlimited VM's.

Brett

 

[Clarksville]

Good advice Brett. We've been giving that option consideration. Recently VMWare announced that its VMWare Server (not ESX) will be free and Microsoft announced that its Virtual Server is free too. That gives many new low cost options for DR solutions by utilizing hardware virtualiztion.

 

[zas1]

Hi,

you can use: Symantec LiveState Recovery Anyware 6.0

Enjoy it!