Have you considered virtualizing your environment? You can achieve a lot of what you want to do and more with virtualized servers. I'm always amazed at how much easier things are in a virtual environment. And I apologize for not providing the answer you were looking for.
On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 9:30 AM, Bob Hartung <[email protected]> wrote: > I've been looking for a disk imaging solution for the servers on our > network. They currently are all Dell PowerEdge servers running Windows 2003. > My main goal is to be able to restore a server quickly in the event of a > hardware failure, like a RAID card failure that hoses the hard drives. > > We use Arcserve for doing nightly backups and as a file by file solution, > it's fine. For disaster recovery, it leaves a lot to be desired. It > essentially does a reinstall of the operating system and then restores from > back. As such, it's not very fast. > > I've tried a number of disk imaging software packages. They all can create > an image of the server system drive while the server is running and that's > great. However, what seems to always be a weak point is restoring from a > boot disk. > > All the packages have a utility to create a bootable CD but they generally > have a problem either accessing the RAID volume or the LAN adapter or both. > Whether they use Windows PXE, Linux or DOS, drivers seem to be a problem. It > would seem logical that these software packages would have a utility to copy > the existing drivers off the system and incorporate them into the BootDisk > but none do that I've found. > > The only package I've tried so far that seems to work with the couple of > servers I've been testing on is Acronis Backup and Recovery for Servers. I'd > use this if it weren't so expensive at roughly $1,000 per server. > > Anyone using a disk imaging solution they'd care to recommend? > > Thanks. > > ---------------------- > > Bob Hartung > Wisco Industries, Inc. > 736 Janesville St. > Oregon, WI 53575 > Tel: (608) 835-3106 x215 > Fax: (608) 835-7399 > e-mail: bhartung(at)wiscoind.com > > > > > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
