1. Go to TechEd 2006 in Boston
2. Go to Jeff Middleton's Myths of DR on SBS
Any questions?
Okay so seriously...
3. Remember that under the hood we're AD.. so even though the big guys
around here cringe at a single DC, all on one box.. all the tricks for
AD restoration still work.
Okay Susan's first and foremost SBS rule of DR
1. Buy good hardware.
I have been running SBS since SBS 4.0 and here's what nailed me in the past
NIC died
Hub died (back when we did hubs)
NIC died
Switch died
Harddrive dropped off raid
Switch froze up required hard reset (just two weeks ago.. good excuse
for upgrading to gig switches don't you think?)
In all those years I've had minimal downtime. Notice that I've only
lost one drive and that was on my adaptec raid screaming like crazy but
the network still chugged just fine ..so these days I buy spare nics and
harddrives.
I've also always had SCSI drives, and with my current baby (HP) have
that lovely hardware monitoring stuff that sends me emails when the
hardware gets even a sniffle.
Now I have a Dell OEM with IDE drives and it's not a server and you can
sooooo tell. The SATA drive ones are ... well ask us again in about
another year or so of the 'three year let's see how they do compared to
SCSI'. My home server is a cheap SATA HP but even that is better than
the cheap Dell OEM version I got.
Lesson 1 - buy HP.. buy good server quality hardware.
2. Consider adding to that backup a drive image software
(okay someone go tell the Garage door guy, the AD guru and the Joeware
guy to stick fingers in their ears and don't read this)
We are only one DC. It's a little hard to have replication and
tombstone issues when you only have one AD. Acronis may not say they
will support imaging a DC... but when you only have one... it's not a
biggie and it works. We've done it. Heck we can even restore a system
state that's getting gray hairs. When you only have "one"...sometimes
you can do things that in big server land you absolutely would never
ever do.
3. Consider adding a secondary DC.
These days with virtual pc/server/vmware load up a server os on a
workstation even and park an additional domain controller to replicate
that AD.
4. Practice that restore. "A few days to get it back in the air"?
Worst case scenerio... Hurricane Katrina.. Jeff Middleton is from New
Orleans Louisiana.. you know what he found? (and I'm ccing him so he can
chat with you more directly).. ever try to buy a server hardware in a
computer store? He was buying MCE editions as they were the beefier
ones.... have offsite backups of media....as he was scrambling in some
cases to get the right media. Sometimes it was the little things that
nailed him.
Your worst case scenerio is replacing that hardware... bare metal
recovery in the 2k3 era is not the same as we had it in the 2k era with
the SFN issues.
SBS is no different of a DR recovery than the big guys... it just
magnifies it is all
In a normal DR setup ... to get that back in the air.. on an SBS box?
Not if you know what you are doing and have practiced.
5. Cold server rights. If you have SA you have cold server
rights....you can park another server with a copy of the OS and then
turn it off and leave it.
Okay now let's review some of that 'the firm is down'.
1. Cached credentials, cached outlook means that the server can drop
off the face of the earth and the workstations just kinda hang out until
it comes back on.
2. Have alternative ways to get to key data. I have a robocopy that
pulls a copy of certain folders over to a spare drive on my
workstation.. Excel and Word docs.. should the gang absopositively need
to get into a doc for a case, even if the server is down, we have a
duplicate that can be gotten into.
But honestly we're no different of a DR story than the big guys..a tad
more complicated due to the all on one box... but the same rules apply
RAID
Hardware
don't skimp
Practice
Decide if you are not going to do the secondary DC and to a server
image...or do the secondary DC and don't image.
and don't panic.....and in my case I'm calling Jeff and paying him to be
my calm DR buddy should something occur...
btw I don't like Veritas in a single SBS setup.. the built in SBS backup
works fine.. if you need to backup additional servers, then do Veritas
Quatro Info wrote:
Hi all,
Have a general question / case.
On small companies ( 10 - 20 employees), what config is the best to set the
downtime in case of a crash to a minimum. Especially in
a SBS environment / small company.
Lets keep it an easy example:
-company has 15 employees
-15 XP workstations
-one SBS 2k3 server installed with all necessary tools etc..veritas
backup exec / groupshield etc etc..
-raid mirror installed
-network is configured well...firewall / updates etc
Lets say all ingredients are there and are proper
installed/working/configurated for the perfect network. You name it ...its
there.
BUT
There is only one server and all is centralized to that one SBS server:
-exchange
-sql dbases
-file sharing
-network shared applications (company specific cms, cmr..etc..)
I mean if that goes down, the whole company is down....and when I mean down, I
mean worst case scenario. Lets say that whole server
is burned to the ground. Every part has turned to dust.
Sure the back up is there and the emergency repair disk etc etc...but no other
server to install it on....ordering it ..restoring
it...takes all a few days to get it back in the air.
Is it best to convince the client/company to keep 2 servers running
together...so that the servers share their functions?
Lets say
-1 server with SBS2k3 for authentication & exchange & sql.
-1 server with win2k3 for filesharing and the network shared
applications.
Sure last is best...but getting them convinced gets back like....we have a
server, it works fine.
If you peepz have other ideas?...share it!
Rgrds Jorre
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