Best Disaster Recovery Setup using Backup Exec

[timkidney]

Hi all

Ive been asked to provide a disaster recovery setup for a SBS 2003 that is running Exchange and all Network protocols as well as some file sharing and Active Directory!

We currently have Backup Exec 12.5 backing up all changed data to a NAS Monday to Thursday then a Full backup to tape on the Friday.

They want to achieve the quickest recovery time if the server were to crash so i suggested we trial Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery to create a full image and maybe use in conjunction with Backup Exec.

Does Baackup Exec have any options for DR (im sure ive seen something about intelligent recovery??) or would using System Recovery be the best option to recovery an SBS server making sure Exchange, Active Directory etc are up and running as they were before the crash?

Any help would be very much appreciated.

[Ben_L_]

Backup Exec does have the Intelligent Disaster Recovery option, but that won't do everything you're looking for in this instance. Backup Exec System Recovery (BESR) may be a better option for you in this instance.  I've honestly never recovered a SBS 2003 server with BESR so I'm not sure on what the process is for getting everything back online, but I have done it many times with 10.x and higher and can tell you that it's not a quick process by any means.  I think the fastest I've ever done it with a customer over the phone was 6 hours and that was with nothing going wrong.  I'm sure there are some caveats to getting an SBS server back online with BESR, you may want to post over on the BESR forum to see if they can help out, or even put in a call to support to get any documentation they may have on it.