Add to that the size of system state (often the majority of the data that gets backed up off a "simple" Windows server), and the number of TSM DB entries it creates for Win2K8 - we all WISH we could dispense with backing up system state.
The first thing you lose, obviously, is the ability to restore system state in case of registry corruption. Happened all the time on WinNT and Win2000, rarely on Win2K3, have never seen it yet on Win2K8. But as far as losing the whole server, the question is, what is "simple" to you, and do you have a documented way to put back your applications? The problem is the ridiculous construction of Windows, where you can't restore the C:\Program Files\ directory without restoring system state. If you lose a Windows server to corruption or hardware failure, just reloading Windows doesn't get your apps reinstalled and configured. The case of a domain controller, for example, is "simple". No need to back up systemstate on those, because if you lose it you just fire up a new domain controller and have the other domain controllers resync it. There are other systems where the apps don't change much. You can do an occasional cloning with something like the old "ghost" software, that gives you a recovery image that includes the apps. Then in case of failure, you can reload the old image, then use TSM incrementals to roll forward. No need to back up system state in that case. But if there are changes to the applications or the registry (including special sets of hotfixes), how you gonna put them back? Do your app people have them documented for each app? I have had cases where the customer had Windows servers loaded with applications (in this case specifically, a software development env from Microsoft) where it was so complicated and required so many registry tweaks and patches from the vendor to get the system working in the first place, that we were quite sure that no one remaining on site had any way to rebuild that environment from a bare Windows. Only hope was to be able to put the apps back by reloading system state. But that was Win2k3. The currently documented BMR restore procedure for Win2K8 on physical systems using ASR and WinPE is highly impractical, I think, for more than a few servers. Not gonna happen for big networks of physical servers that are not under strict control. And in widely distributed environments, the TSM admin doesn't necessarily have any control over what TSM is told to back up. So the answer is, "IT DEPENDS", on what your DR capability is for the systems in question. (My favorite solution is Windows under VMware, where you can do an incremental backup of a bootable image, without ever dealing with systemstate backups.) They should open a TSM ticket for the missing system writers issue; I have seen hits for that message that were fixable. If it's not fixable, then turn off systemstate for that system, use ntbackup (which I think is called something else in Win2K8 but still works) driven with the preschedule option to dump systemstate to a flat file, let TSM back up that flat file. If it won't dump to a flat file, then you've got a broken system and they should open a ticket with Microsoft. W -----Original Message----- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Zoltan Forray Sent: Thursday, January 09, 2014 1:12 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [ADSM-L] POLL: Backing up Windows Systemstate A question about backing up systemstate, which seems to give us numerous headaches. Do you backup systemsstate on your Windows servers and WHY? My Windows folks constantly contact me about errors backup up and getting failures related to the systemstate files/process or VSS. For example, today's headache is a 2008 box failing with *"System Writers 'system writer' do not exist * and yes, doing a "vssadmin list writers" does not list "system writers". They have been fighting this since November, with no solution to fixing this problem. All hits/suggested solutions from Google searches have been tried, to no avail. I don't thing the server owners are willing to do a complete rebuild. The simple solution would be to NOT backups systemstate. For a simple 2008 server, what do we lose by not backing up systemstate? -- *Zoltan Forray* TSM Software & Hardware Administrator Virginia Commonwealth University UCC/Office of Technology Services [email protected] - 804-828-4807 Don't be a phishing victim - VCU and other reputable organizations will never use email to request that you reply with your password, social security number or confidential personal information. For more details visit http://infosecurity.vcu.edu/phishing.html
