Backup SBS server

[John]

Hi

We have an SBS2000 server which is slightly mission critical. Can we have a
backup server attached to the same network that will take over when the main
server fails? We are using Exchange for mail, ISA Server for Web access and
file server capabilities. The server is obviously a domain controller too.

Thanks

Regards

[Susan Bradley, CPA aka "Ebitz" SBS Rocks [MVP]]

How mission critical is mission critical...

SBS is a single domain controller box. In order to truly have a redundant,
backup domain controllers that will truly be backup domain controllers, you
would need a normal Win2k system.

What exactly is mission critical? Certain data? The whole box? Internet?
Build in redundancies to those particular items.

I've got Raid 5, nightly backup, AND something that I call the "paranoid
backup". I've got a 60 gig hard drive as a second drive inside my workstation
that does a "robocopy" backup of the data drives. Should something happen to
the server, I can get to the data....

[Mal Osborne]

Slightly mission critical?

If it *IS* mission critical, it sounds like you are after a clustering
solution. This is not a "small business" thing, is not supported by SBS, and
will involve some significant cash outlay.

If it is kinda sorta mission critical, then you can do a lot to ensure that
it stays up. This is all standard stuff:
1. A decent UPS, maybe even a few sizes bigger than you need. I have a
customer with a 3KVA unit on a small server, they get around 4 hours
runtime.
2. A decent backup solution, with good hardware, good 3rd party
software, and thorough testing and documentation.
3. Good physical security, a locked computer room and burglar alarm may
be a good idea.
4. A minimum of untested 3rd party software, (I have seen servers with
Doom loaded)
5. A brand name computer, with a rapid response onsite hardware
coverage.
6. Redundant hardware. Any fan, HDD, PSU, failure or minor memory error
should not bring the server down.

Mal Osborne
MCSE MVP Mensa

"John" <Jo...@nospam.infovis.co.uk> wrote in message
news:uAhKDIkGCHA.1596@tkmsftngp13...

[Dave Nickason]

Susan - how do you do the robocopy backup? Do you re-copy all of the data
every night, or only changed data? I'm looking for something similar to
your "paranoid backup," to a device that could be removed for off-site
backup.

"Susan Bradley, CPA aka "Ebitz" SBS Rocks [MVP]" <sbra...@pacbell.net>
wrote in message news:3D154F30...@pacbell.net...

[Susan Bradley, CPA aka "Ebitz" SBS Rocks [MVP]]

It just copies the "changed" files. So it compares what's on the drive to the
server and copies over what's different.

[David Bakody DB]

I do a robo-copy (so to speak) to alternating USB 2.0 external hard drives
i.e. Monday's backup is taken home Tuesday evening and swapped with Friday's
hard drive, Tuesday's is taken home on Wednesday (which was swapped with
Monday's), and so on. This way we always have one backup off-site and one
on-site, in addition to the protection afforded by tape and RAID-5. I will
also haphazardly remote backup certain critical data to my home server since
I have a fast cable connection, but this latter part isn't automated.

"Dave Nickason" <gwdi...@frontiernet.net> wrote in message
news:ueUHRq4GCHA.2388@tkmsftngp09...