Need Disaster Recovery / Server Redundancy Suggestions

[Jay Bollyn]

We have a critical proprietary app running on a stand-alone Dell PowerEdge 2600 tower, win2k3 SE SP1. We are looking at ways to provide redundancy for this system, in the event of a disaster such as a fire in the building. A full system backup to tape is run every night, using Veritas Backup Exec v9.1.

My preference would be to have a 2-node server cluster, with node #2 in a different campus building, on our Intranet. Both nodes would of course need to be running EE. This means we would need to upgrade the existing tower from SE to EE, which hopefully can be done?

Is it a good idea for both cluster nodes to be as similar as possible, in terms of server hardware?

http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Implementing-Two-Node-Cluster-Windows-2003-Enterprise.html

TIA - Jay

[Basil Vizgin]

Also you must implement solution to replicate data online to remote site.
You can do this by software like HP OpenView Storage Mirroring, Constantdata Replicator, etc.

[Igor Karasik]

Jay,
you can upgrade windows 2003 SE to EE:
"Can I upgrade Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition to Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition"
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/47541/47541.html
In order to provide full site redundancy you may decide to build geographically dispersed cluster and not standard server cluster. In this case you don't need identical hardware on both sites.
Windows clustering and geographically separate sites
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;280743
Geographically Dispersed Clusters in Windows Server 2003
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/overview/clustergeo.mspx

[Roger Faucher · Accepted solution]

Jay:

Happy Holidays!

If you haven't already done so, you may want to investigate MS DPM:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/dpm/default.mspx

Make a great day!

Roger

[Phil.Howell]

Depending on your eventual configuration,
this software may be of some use.
http://www.nsisoftware.com/what-we-offer/double-take/
Phil

[Basil Vizgin]

Phil, HP resell DoubleTake as HP Storage Mirroring :)

[Colin_29]

For real time replication, take a look at CA High Availability http://www3.ca.com/Solutions/Product.asp?ID=1519 and NeverFail http://www.neverfailgroup.com/ they both do exactly what you want.

If you are able to tolerate the loss of up to an hours worth of data with a recovery time of about the same, then you could look at a much cheaper solution such as http://sea.symantec.com/content/product.cfm?productid=23

Clustering will still leave you with your data store as a single point of failure.

HTH
Colin

[Prashant (I am Back)]

http://download.microsoft.com/download/c/4/c/c4c22a50-247e-4249-a9f7-a6481d4fa947/DPM_Introduction.doc
MS Soln

Prashant S.

[Jay Bollyn]

Monday Night Football in the snow! Don't you just love it?!

OK, I guess it's an American thing.

More later...

- Jay

[Omar Senussi]

Hi Jay,

Would that be Yankee football or the beautiful game?!

Anyway.. to the matter in hand, following on in thre same vein as the previous post, as I'm a bit wary with anything Symantec stick their fingers in, have a look at Acronis Server for Windows Enterprise Edition. I know this works flawlessly with W2K3 and SBS W2K3, including Exchange and SQL. Very reasonably priced as well.. The rest of their lineup is pretty good as well!
http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/

All the best.. and Happy Xmas to you and everyone..

Omar

[Jay Bollyn]

closed