Best practice for upgrading and installing Backup Exec

[shutdown]

Hello,

I was hoping to get some detailed instructions on the best way to migrate Backup Exec 12 components to a new server running the same OS and same version of BE.

My current server is a DC running Windows Server 2003 R2.  I want to buy another server to be used as a 'standby' server in case the current server fails.  Do I need to have an additional BE license when installing BE 12 on the new server? 

The current server has a tape drive and does full backups every business day and in the event of server failure I want to be able to load the tape in the new server and restore shared userdata to it, mapping the new drive on each workstation for users to be able to access this data.  This would cause very little downtime and I hope to be able to achieve this instead of having the current server fail and causing major downtime while it gets rescued. 

Please assist me with the best solution on achieving this.  Also, if possible please advise on whether or not upgrading to BE 2010 is a fairly simple process as I may want to upgrade if it's not too complex.

Thanks for your time!

[Ken_Putnam]

See  http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH67768
 

How to move Backup Exec from one system to another with the same or different computer names

Technically, you would indeed need a second license on the second server if you pre-install it, but you could install BackupExec on it when the primary server dies for no extra charge. 

You  may be able to sweet talk an auditor into accepting the "standby/backup" backup server, but is it worth the risk?

[pkh]

To do what you want to, you would have to physically move the tape drive from your production server to your standby server.

If the standby server's hardware is similar to the production server, then you might want to test out IDR (Intelligent Disaster Recovery).  With the IDR bootable CD, you can restore the standby server to the state at the time of the last backup of the production server, i.e, your standby server replaces the production server.  You can read up the IDR chapter in the Admin Guide. 

[shutdown]

Thanks for the advice!  I'll read about the IDR and see if it's something that might work for me.