SUPPORTDisaster Recovery (Bare Metal) using LiveVault
Disaster Recovery (Bare Metal) using LiveVault
The ability to perform a complete, system-level Windows server recovery is a key goal in an overall backup and disaster recovery plan. A Windows server's environment includes the system state, OS hot fixes, utility programs, configuration files and a myriad of settings that make up the application configurations.
LiveVault allows a Windows server's entire environment to be restored to new hardware. This gives you the flexibility in planning for or reacting to disasters. You can use the failure as a moment to acquire a newer machine, or you can press some other machine into use as a temporary replacement.
With LiveVault you get support to assist you through the recovery process to ensure that you have the best possible DR experience, at no extra charge. Whenever you perform a DR, call Customer Support. LiveVault technical support staff will assist you and/or provide a second set of eyes to double check your activity. You don't have to "go it alone." The LiveVault Support team reports that by getting involved in the DR at the beginning and staying in communication through the process they can make a big difference in customer satisfaction.
Summary of the recovery process for a Windows server. Full documentation is online at: https://livevaultservice.livevault.com/Help/tsk/rs_rstentirecompu.html
- Locate a machine to use as a replacement. Make sure it has the same drive letters and that the partition sizes are large enough to hold the data to be restored.
- Load the same base level OS and service pack as the original. Perform a minimal work group install. Do not install IIS or anything optional or extra. Put the machine on the network and install the LiveVault agent software kit using the DR option.
- From the web UI, restore the system and the data. The data can come over the Internet, from a LiveVault TurboRestore appliance or from a Media Restore device that was shipped to you.
- Reboot the system. At this time, a system state merge occurs so that the new device drivers are not wiped out by the restored drivers from the old server.
The new server now has the same IP address, System ID (SID), hot fixes, program files, domain setup and software configuration information as the original - as well as the data.
Recovery Time. The time to do a recovery depends on how quickly a replacement server is located, the speed with which data can be sent, and the amount of data to be restored. Because LiveVault has the Delta Restore capability, you can dramatically reduce the amount of data that must be restored in response to a disaster if you do a periodic re-directed restore of the user data to a designated standby server. In the event of a disaster, LiveVault will only need to send any block-level changes that have occurred since the last periodic restore. Included in this will be the system state and other OS files that allow the standby server to acquire the identity of the failed server.
Limitations and Cautions. If the original and the replacement hardware are very different, then there may be extra steps in the DR process. You should always call Customer Service, especially if:
- You are going from a single to a multi-processor machine, or vice versa
- You are going from an IDE or SCSI disk system to a RAID controller, or vice versa
- You have more than one NIC card in the new machine, or you are going from a dual NIC server to a single NIC machine.
- The video card type is different, i.e. going from AGP to PGI or vice versa.
In the above situations a Windows upgrade in place is typically required as an extra step.
