-----Original Message----- From: Ben Scott [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 1:14 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Domain Controller HD setup
Is there something wrong with using NTBACKUP to write the System State to tape, removable HDD, or optical disc on a regular basis? You can do that online without having to shut anything down. Or is that just for the "bring the VM up on other hardware" idea you mentioned? The other hardware part. While backup is good, I've seen too many failed restores or problems, esp w/NTBackup to rely solely on that. I can bring up another VM instance in minutes. It can take days to work through the problems restoring from backups. Auth alone is pretty useless to most small orgs. They want their files and their email; they don't use the computer for anything else. (This is not to say the virtualization idea isn't worth considering, just commenting on the "at least for auth purposes" idea.) Depending on the failure, you can lose a DC or AD DB without exch or shares going down. But without auth, you won't be able to use them. With working auth and a new exch DB, I can at least get new mail flowing while I recover an exch DB and older mail. > ... a system board or memory failure could take down your entire company for possibly > several days. Get a decent service contract, and you can reduce that to four hours for the vast majority of cases. If you talk to HP these days, their "4 hour" service contracts are "best effort" now. We've been bitten twice by that. Took 3 days to get the part when they had a depot issue and then UPS lost the shipment. While I still maintain 4x9x5 contracts on my critical servers, I no longer have the illusion that they will really be back up and running that quickly. Your point about offsite is a good one, too. Ask management what would happen if their building burned down. Another good reason for VMWare. :-) ********************** Charlie Kaiser W2K3 MCSA/MCSE/Security Systems Engineer Essex Credit / Brickwalk 925 274 3183 ********************** ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~
