Hi there,

We are setting up two Windows Servers as dummy servers as part of a disaster
recovery solution (Waiting ready and setup in case of disaster in the
office). These servers are to be setup in the same way as two office servers
where one is the domain controller, and the other is running exchange.

Occasionally a restore will be made from a backup tape created in the office
to the backup, to make sure that the dummy servers are functioning as
expected.

This all seemed to make sense to me, however, due to my slight lack of
knowledge in setting up email and domains on Windows 2003 Server, in the
event of a disaster I am not sure what would actually happen to get things
up and going again.

Assuming we have a broadband connection where the dummy servers are and we
were to perform a restore of exchange etc, would email just carry on working
at the new location?

Forgive me if this a dumb question, but is there anything location dependent
on the way exchange would collect it's email.

To put it another way, if I was to take the servers from the office, and
move them somewhere else onto a different broadband connection, would they
just carry on working?

I hope this question kind of makes sense and please forgive me if it is
stupid.

Thanks.

David

"news.microsoft.com" <no> wrote in message
news:4784
> Hi there,
>
> We are setting up two Windows Servers as dummy servers as part of a
disaster
> recovery solution (Waiting ready and setup in case of disaster in the
> office). These servers are to be setup in the same way as two office
servers
> where one is the domain controller, and the other is running exchange.
>
> Occasionally a restore will be made from a backup tape created in the
office
> to the backup, to make sure that the dummy servers are functioning as
> expected.
>
> This all seemed to make sense to me, however, due to my slight lack of
> knowledge in setting up email and domains on Windows 2003 Server, in the
> event of a disaster I am not sure what would actually happen to get things
> up and going again.
>
> Assuming we have a broadband connection where the dummy servers are and we
> were to perform a restore of exchange etc, would email just carry on
working
> at the new location?
>
> Forgive me if this a dumb question, but is there anything location
dependent
> on the way exchange would collect it's email.
>
> To put it another way, if I was to take the servers from the office, and
> move them somewhere else onto a different broadband connection, would they
> just carry on working?
>
> I hope this question kind of makes sense and please forgive me if it is
> stupid.
>
> Thanks.
>
> David

Your alternative site must obtain the same external IP address as the
main site, or else you must get your MX record changed (which could
take some time to propagate).

"Pegasus (MVP)" <I.can> wrote in message
news:4784
> Your alternative site must obtain the same external IP address as the
> main site, or else you must get your MX record changed (which could
> take some time to propagate).


OK thank you for that. So in reality, would they need broadband provided by
the same company. How likely is it that a static IP address can be
transferred to another location?

Any idea what other companies do to keep email working in the event of
failure of their main server(s) and they have backup servers in place to
which operation switches to?

"news.microsoft.com" <no> wrote in message
news:3684
>
> "Pegasus (MVP)" <I.can> wrote in message
> news:4784
> > Your alternative site must obtain the same external IP address as the
> > main site, or else you must get your MX record changed (which could
> > take some time to propagate).
>> OK thank you for that. So in reality, would they need broadband provided
by
> the same company. How likely is it that a static IP address can be
> transferred to another location?
>
> Any idea what other companies do to keep email working in the event of
> failure of their main server(s) and they have backup servers in place to
> which operation switches to?
>>

The easiest way is to make an arrangement with your ISP so
that you can switch your fixed IP address from one location
to another. Your ISP will tell you if he can do it.

You can set up a secondary MX record to be used if the first is unreachable,
Anthony


"Pegasus (MVP)" <I.can> wrote in message
news:1888
[..]

"Anthony" <anthony.spam> wrote in message
news:4784
> You can set up a secondary MX record to be used if the first is
> unreachable,
> Anthony
Ahh now that is interesting.

Thanks for all the comments.

"Anthony" <anthony.spam> wrote in message
news:4784
> You can set up a secondary MX record to be used if the first is
> unreachable,
> Anthony


Actually one question on that. What if the backup server that the MX record
points to is not turned on most of the time (only in the event of a
disaster).

Lets say there is some temporary problems with the first server, and then it
tries to deliver to the second rather then retrying the first later, could
this cause some problems?

David

The sending server is going to try to send to one of the servers listed as
MX. If none are available, it will go in a queue to try again later
Anthony



"news.microsoft.com" <no> wrote in message
news:1888
[..]

So have you tried this plan? How do you plan on keeping AD in sync?

Anthony wrote:
[..]

"daveberm" <david.bermingham> wrote in message
news:4800
> So have you tried this plan? How do you plan on keeping AD in sync?
>
What is AD?

Thanks

Active Directory. This is the database that holds all of your user
accounts and Exchange configuration among other things.

news.microsoft.com wrote:
[..]

>> > So have you tried this plan? How do you plan on keeping AD in sync?

Ahh, very good question (Now that I know what AD is), and one that I would
welcome your opinion. In the first instance, this is only a DR recovery.

So in the event of a disaster, we would have two servers ready and waiting
to recover the data to. I assumed that as part of a restore (backup up using
veritas Backup Exec 9.1) from the most recent tape backup, the AD would also
be restored (correct me if I am wrong).

The idea of having the servers ready and waiting is that we have a tested
backup solution in place.

But then we were looking to take it to another level. In this instance we
were going to install another server into the office which is running R2.
Now I am told this has differential file synchronisation ( a feature
available in UNIX for a long time).

By linking up the backup and live server over the VPN, we can keep the
backup server up to date. Now this is what I have been told anyway.

Does this make sense?

If the DC is in the same domain, then AD will automatically keep the DC
in sync. The syncronization service I believe you are refering to is
DFS, and is described here...

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserv...s/default.mspx

It may help you keep your file server in sync, but it can't do
databases such as Exchange. You will still need to rely on backup and
recover unless you go with a third party data replication product.

If you are using Veritas Backup Exec, then I would check with them to
see how they would suggest you plan and test for disaster recovery of
your Exchange server.

news.microsoft.com wrote:
[..]

"daveberm" <david.bermingham> wrote in message
news:2600
> If the DC is in the same domain, then AD will automatically keep the DC
> in sync. The syncronization service I believe you are refering to is
> DFS, and is described here...
>
> [..]
>
> It may help you keep your file server in sync, but it can't do
> databases such as Exchange. You will still need to rely on backup and
> recover unless you go with a third party data replication product.
>
> If you are using Veritas Backup Exec, then I would check with them to
> see how they would suggest you plan and test for disaster recovery of
> your Exchange server.
All very good points there and thanks for that. I was told that the latest
version of exchange does now support the file replication, but we had
already prepared to have to restore Exchange from tape.
My understanding of Veritas is that it has the ability to backup exchange as
when using the software you can choose to backup the exchange databases.

I assume this is OK, but maybe I will check with Veritas (now Symantec) on
this point.

Thanks again and any other input welcome.

D.