Active Directory Help

LillyVanilli

I have a Windows 2003 Disaster Recovery Server stored offsite. In a Dr situation, like if the building burnt down and I had no access to any of our current hardware, I would hope that from my backup tapes I can restore my domain by using my DR server thats stored offsite. This server has a different name than my current live server and different hardware. Is it possible to restore Active Directory onto my DR server and rebuild my domain from scratch?

All my backups are taken using CA Arcserve. I can only find valid links in Google for Win 2000 and ntbackup.

Any help appreciated

youcancallmeal

Its a fairly complicated task to recover an AD domain. It took us 2 days in a recent DR test to recover from back ups, and that was with with specialists who have done this kind of thing before. Good luck!

LillyVanilli

Mmm, not what I want to hear. Do you have any info you can share with me?

cance

can you communicate with your dr site day to day via a network? You will have a much easier time performing a dr if Ad is replicated accross day to day.

Restoring bare metal to different hardware is always a massive pain In the arse without third party software.

LillyVanilli

No unfortunately, cant get Active Directory to replicate on a daily basis. I could bring my DR server in and run DCpromo now to install AD. Would it be easier to restore AD in a disaster if it was already installed on it?

tech

If you run dcpromo on the DR server, you would need to bring this to site every 60 days, or else the server will go into a TOMBSTONE object in AD.

LillyVanilli

Has anyone here managed to restore AD from backup to different hardware and rebuild their domain?

cance

Ruby2Shoes wrote: »

Has anyone here managed to restore AD from backup to different hardware and rebuild their domain?

Yes, but using third party utilities (symantec livestate).

Restoring domain controllers is a massive pain In the arse at the best of time and looking for the answer here may not be too fruitful.

If you want the cleanest and easiest solution either configure a dial In connection from your dr site to replicate once a day, or increase the tombstone date on your domain and bring your dr DC into the LAN regularly.

Another option still is to create a virtual machine on a work machine that you can backup and restore on the dr site. Using a VM would eliminate hardware and driver issues. Virtual pc would be a good candidate for this, just make sure the vm is an active directory global catalogue. All the other fsmo roles will cause issues in the long run.

LillyVanilli

Ok thanks for your help. Hopefully we'll never have a DR situation! Ill investigate replicating over a VPN connection which doesnt look straight forward either.