Hi
Paul, do you use the disk snapshots to provide the ability to restore an object
or the whole DC (and therefore the whole Active Directory database), or
both....?
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of PAUL MAYES
Sent: 08 Mar 2006 13:13
To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] AD Lag Sites</lurker>Hi All,Forgive me a second whilst I ramble on 'cos this IS going to be a ramble, then shoot me down in flames at the end!The problem with DR is getting the data from somewhere. Typically we go back to tape, which depending on when the last successful backup took place gives you a bit of a wide window to play with. Not good if you're going back some 24 hours/days etc...To get better coverage of times we kicked about with lag sites. Trouble is, and this has already been noted, replication and timings can scupper the intentions of lag sites and where do you stop. Is one enough, is one for every hour of the day enough?Microsoft released this white paper on fast recovery with AD using SAN's and disk imaging.Now, I'm currently playing with using Microsoft's in-built disk snapshotting to provide something similar. So on a pure DC server I've set it up to snapsnot it's disks every hour. And then I get to chose which hour that I go back to and use as my recovered backup. After all it's the same tech that's used when you actually do a backup.No need for a lag site, just pick the hour on the timeline and restore from that DC. Ok so it means that you might need bigger disk and you can only snapshot down to 30mins. But if you're a bit creative with a few DC's then you can get much better coverage than lag sites without the need for more DC's or creative subnetting.Now I'm going to stand back and be shot down in flames. But thus far playing with VSS is kind of casting doubt on plans for one or multiple lag sites. I'm not going to bore with the how's and where's but it might stimulate some discussion.Oh and I realise that this is way far from perfect.Curious to know if anyone has done this or thought about it if nothing else.Paul.Myrick, Todd \(NIH/CC/DNA\) [E]
Mon, 06 Mar 2006 15:35:36 -0800I also said, I have to spend my time and money wisely. I am well aware of why people use lag-sites. They always like to throw the money issue around... but I wonder what the TCO is really. Maybe these major AD DR players should commission a study.... heck maybe MSFT should for both AD and Exchange Mailboxes. I think you would do better to encourage new Admins to make sure they do a MFT backup of a domain controllers system state each night, then stand-up more sites and servers. Then based on need select the restore method and evaluate the results. I agree knowing how all the inner workings does help as well, but operations people are usually not engineers, so it is best to give them tools that have some workflow, and makes the operation smooth and less error prone. Thanks again, Todd
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