Disaster Recovery Opinion

14 Oct 2005 2:43 PM

Phillip Vong

I have a very simple network with 3 servers.

SRV1 = Win 2003 running DC/DNS/DHCP
SRV2 = Exchange 2003
SRV3 = Win 2003 as SQL/File server

I use Veritas Exec and I backup everything every night.

If I were to buy 3 additional servers and named it the same and with all the
same information as the production server, do you think I can just retore
from my backup tapes on these backup servers with no problem? I will
litterally call everything the same as the production servers and I'll even
use the same set of IPs.

Even crazier scenerio. Would it work if I just got 1 new server and loaded
it up with RAM and ran VMware? Storage is not an issue.

Thanks in advance.

Phil

15 Oct 2005 1:52 AM

Pegasus (MVP)

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"Phillip Vong" <phillip_vong*at*yahoo*dot*com> wrote in message
news:%23i8G12M0FHA.664@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> I have a very simple network with 3 servers.
>
> SRV1 = Win 2003 running DC/DNS/DHCP
> SRV2 = Exchange 2003
> SRV3 = Win 2003 as SQL/File server
>
> I use Veritas Exec and I backup everything every night.
>
> If I were to buy 3 additional servers and named it the same and with all
the
> same information as the production server, do you think I can just retore
> from my backup tapes on these backup servers with no problem? I will
> litterally call everything the same as the production servers and I'll
even
> use the same set of IPs.
>
>
> Even crazier scenerio. Would it work if I just got 1 new server and
loaded
> it up with RAM and ran VMware? Storage is not an issue.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Phil

All versions of Windows and especially servers become hardware-specific
after installation. If you restore an installation onto new hardware then it
will be unreliable (at best) or it won't boot at all (at worst). Have a look
here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/upgrading/nt4/tooldocs/msfsc.mspx