Ghosting / Cloning Servers before big changes

johnmacward

I'm looking for a decent piece of software that will ghost a "server" hard disk, in other words it should be compatible with RAID arrays etc.

I've heard of Symantec Ghost, Acronis etc. but I'm not sure of their compatibility with server machines (typically HP Proliant's).

The reason being that we're starting to do migrations from SBS 2003 to SBS 2008 and it requires large changes to the 2003 server.

It'd be nice to have an original "un-changed" point to go back to in case there's a feck up during the procedure. We've had a few scares in the past with bad Active Directory upgrades or Exchange not replicating properly on the 03 and ultimately have had to go ahead with the 08 migration and hope that everything is ok.

tech

i would recommend Acronis, you can either take an image off line or use the on the fly live version .

Images are key .

johnmacward

Nice one, it's worth a look. Acronis, thanks. Is it good with servers specifically - I'm talking RAID arrays, RAID controllers etc. I assume you mean "Out of operating system" by offline mode, but what is Live mode - While the OS is running?

tech

yes your correct on both, I had an issues lately my Acronis disk would not boot into a DL380g6 with a P410 smart array card, I think i need to custom build the disk with these drivers., other than than its a great product

corkcomp

depending on your raid setup - i.e. if it is a basic mirror I often set one disk to offline (dont go it during DB dumps etc) and insert another in its place.. when that re-constructs make whatever changes you intend to and if anything goes wrong you can use the disk removed as your raid disk 0-0 to boot..

Gillie

Backup Exec System Recovery.

Have performed hundreds of recoveries at this stage and no major issues with it.

johnmacward

Thanks for all the replies lads.

Gillie wrote: »

Backup Exec System Recovery.

Have performed hundreds of recoveries at this stage and no major issues with it.

The only problem with System Recovery is it's price. I noticed it was around €4,500 for a 5 license per year setup. Does that sound right?

tech wrote: »

I had an issues lately my Acronis disk would not boot into a DL380g6 with a P410 smart array card, I think i need to custom build the disk with these drivers., other than than its a great product

Thats the only thing I'd want working well, Acronis Windows Server is €768 and I'd hate to shell out that money to find it doesn't work on a bunch of Proliants we have around the place. I have a trial that I'm going to give a try anyway.

corkcomp wrote: »

depending on your raid setup - i.e. if it is a basic mirror I often set one disk to offline (dont go it during DB dumps etc) and insert another in its place.. when that re-constructs make whatever changes you intend to and if anything goes wrong you can use the disk removed as your raid disk 0-0 to boot..

The lack of spare disks does me out of that option although sounds like a clever way of doing things.

n0brain3r

johnmacward wrote: »

The only problem with System Recovery is it's price. I noticed it was around €4,500 for a 5 license per year setup. Does that sound right?

I paid about €2000 incl Vat for 5 license's about 9 months ago I've a mix of ML350 G4,G5 & G6 and a DL380G5 I backup using system recovery to a server at the far end of a warehouse running VMWare and I've tested each image all are fine I also used BESR to move one server from a failing Dell Poweredge to a New ML350G6 and once I installed the PSP I've never looked back PM me if you want he details of the co I bought from.

johnmacward

n0brain3r wrote: »

I paid about €2000 incl Vat for 5 license's about 9 months ago I've a mix of ML350 G4,G5 & G6 and a DL380G5 I backup using system recovery to a server at the far end of a warehouse running VMWare and I've tested each image all are fine I also used BESR to move one server from a failing Dell Poweredge to a New ML350G6 and once I installed the PSP I've never looked back PM me if you want he details of the co I bought from.

That's exactly what we have - from G4's to G6's. Unfortunately, even that price is killer. We have many clients in different business's around the place and the main reason for it is just to make a quick system state backup of their SBS 2003's (and usually just that) on the Friday night of the migration before we make any changes that we can go back to if anything crazy happens on the Saturday or Sunday. Basically it will be used rarely, only during migrations or maybe major server updates.

Gillie

Your getting what you pay for to be honest.
That is the proven ability to recover to different hardware.
I haven't used acronis to be honest so I cannot argue its pro's and con's

We've sold BESR to a lot of our clients and they are quite happy with what it gives them.

PM me if your interested in taking this conversation offline.

Thanks.

johnmacward

Gillie wrote: »

Your getting what you pay for to be honest.

I completely understand you and it's true as well. I don't think we have the level of server infrastructure (usually just one SBS per client) to justify it and generally convincing the boss is the other thing anyway.

Capt'n Midnight

if you are very au fait with Raid

you could mirror the drives to a single large one (or if you have physical room raid 10 ) do this in the raid controller or by software within the OS

the good points are that the backup is bang up to date till you break the mirror and the best bit is that recovery is instant , pop in the mirror and you are good to go

and hard drives are probably cheaper than licenses

johnmacward

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

if you are very au fait with Raid

you could mirror the drives to a single large one (or if you have physical room raid 10 ) do this in the raid controller or by software within the OS

the good points are that the backup is bang up to date till you break the mirror and the best bit is that recovery is instant , pop in the mirror and you are good to go

and hard drives are probably cheaper than licenses

There is method in your madness Capt'n Midnight. In some situations it would work, in others I wouldn't have the hardware. We have many different generation servers with different types of SCSI and SATA RAID setups. Some have good RAID options, others sparse. In some cases it might be a goer if we have spares lying about so thanks for laying down some know-ledge!

Gillie

johnmacward wrote: »

I completely understand you and it's true as well. I don't think we have the level of server infrastructure (usually just one SBS per client) to justify it and generally convincing the boss is the other thing anyway.

Fair enough.

You could always download the trial version and try it out?
It will show you what you would be paying for if you went with it.
If you did go down the trial road, ensure the restore anywhere option is enabled when taking images.

n0brain3r

I think the restore anywhere functionality is disabled in the demo to stop people using it to just migrate a server. I know I'd trouble using it before I bought the licenses and I logged a call with Symantec support and I think that was the outcome it was phone support so I can't be sure as I've nothing to look back at :pac:

Gillie

Actually you could be right.
I'll try it this evening and see...

johnmacward

Gillie wrote: »

Fair enough.

You could always download the trial version and try it out?
It will show you what you would be paying for if you went with it.
If you did go down the trial road, ensure the restore anywhere option is enabled when taking images.

I have, I've yet to install it. I'm trying to put it on the most appropriate machine so as to use the trial effectively.

n0brain3r wrote: »

I think the restore anywhere functionality is disabled in the demo to stop people using it to just migrate a server. I know I'd trouble using it before I bought the licenses and I logged a call with Symantec support and I think that was the outcome it was phone support so I can't be sure as I've nothing to look back at :pac:

That's no big deal as I'll be looking to restore back to the original server anyway.

n0brain3r

A couple of suggestions for ya!

If you can backup to another machine over the LAN rather than a NAS or USB drive I've sat for hours waiting for the image to be created and then restored!

Disconnect the SBS server from the LAN immedately before you image the server and don't connect it back until your happy with what you've done to it! Basicly don't let any client PCs on the same network as the imaged server if you want to go back to that image.

johnmacward

n0brain3r wrote: »

A couple of suggestions for ya!

If you can backup to another machine over the LAN rather than a NAS or USB drive I've sat for hours waiting for the image to be created and then restored!

Disconnect the SBS server from the LAN immedately before you image the server and don't connect it back until your happy with what you've done to it! Basicly don't let any client PCs on the same network as the imaged server if you want to go back to that image.

Personally I thought it would be fastest backing up to a USB drive, we have a pretty quick 1TB.

Cheers for that, that IS good advice and not something you would think of straight away.

By the way, to everybody who has assisted - thanks a million. I'm learning a pile.

Gillie

johnmacward wrote: »

Personally I thought it would be fastest backing up to a USB drive, we have a pretty quick 1TB.

Cheers for that, that IS good advice and not something you would think of straight away.

By the way, to everybody who has assisted - thanks a million. I'm learning a pile.

No he's right.
It will be faster over the LAN.

I've seen drastic differences between imaging to USB HDD and imaging to a share on the LAN.

johnmacward

Gillie wrote: »

No he's right.
It will be faster over the LAN.

I've seen drastic differences between imaging to USB HDD and imaging to a share on the LAN.

Is this with specific software or what.

Our LAN's are typically 100Mbps (roughly 8 to 9MB/s) whereas I often see up to 20 to 40MB/s over USB. In the case of doing an offline clone what would be quicker? That's what we'd probably be trying to achieve.

I know I'm right in the technical sense that USB 2.0 is quicker, why faster over LAN?

Gillie

johnmacward wrote: »

Is this with specific software or what.

Our LAN's are typically 100Mbps (roughly 8 to 9MB/s) whereas I often see up to 20 to 40MB/s over USB. In the case of doing an offline clone what would be quicker? That's what we'd probably be trying to achieve.

I know I'm right in the technical sense that USB 2.0 is quicker, why faster over LAN?

I dunno why but I've found on numerous occasions that the job ran to USB drive was woeful compared to the LAN.

Best thing to do is try it out.
Run a job to your USB drive.
They re-run it to a share on your LAN and see how it goes.

Oh and make sure to carry out the same test when recovering!!
Had a case yesterday where the "backup" to disk took 100 minutes but the recovery took nearly all day! Haven't pinpointed the problem yet but like I said try these things out.

Cheers

Capt'n Midnight

johnmacward wrote: »

Is this with specific software or what.

Our LAN's are typically 100Mbps (roughly 8 to 9MB/s) whereas I often see up to 20 to 40MB/s over USB. In the case of doing an offline clone what would be quicker? That's what we'd probably be trying to achieve.

I know I'm right in the technical sense that USB 2.0 is quicker, why faster over LAN?

Most servers have two gigabit NIC's , so even if you only have 10/100 switches you can use a direct connection using the other NIC ( use a range like 172.16.x.y and no gateway or routing and share by IP address not by name )

Fastest copying is to a spare drive on a different controller in the same machine , gigabit is next (there is no reason to use 10/100) and then USB 2

kcphoto

May be a bit late for OP but have you looked at Macrium Reflect ?
very simple and fast.
Costs about €40 , can take an image live and generally will recognise raid (create a win pe boot cd within the program in seconds).
full images can also be converted to virtual images.
No bare metal restore on server version yet but only a matter of time.
I have used this with several servers and it has worked brilliantly.
Recommend image to ext usb drive and test your boot cd to make sure it can see current logical drives.

johnmacward

No, it's not one bit late. I've still to try a few things out - work has got in the way of... work!

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check it out.

BaconZombie

CloneZilla.......

rolion

Short tip:VMWare & vConverter P2V and store that VM in archived storage,also you'll need to install an updated version of APP_ABC in your own lab before deploying on site,live !