Intelligent Recovery Question

[Shahin123]

Hi,

I have some questions regarding the intelligent recovery,

Do I need an Agent for this option as wel? or the media server license is enough? I was also reading the how to use the intelligent recovery and they say after running the intelligent recovery wizard (to creat a path fo the *dr files and bootable media), I have to create a full backup of the server, do you mean to backup the server fully with BE ? or we can create this full backup with windows server 2008 R2 backup?

Thanks

[AmolB]

IDR license is included in the core license itself, you just need to activate the option.

Click on Tools->Install Options and license key->on the next screen select IDR option

You need to take a full backup through BE.

IDR best practices http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO21775

[pkh]

IDR is free from BE 11 (I think) onwards.  You just need to go to Tools --> Install Licence Keys and Options and select the IDR option.

You would need to backup the entire system using BE, no other backup will do.  You must include the C: drive, shadow copy component and the system state.

After your full backup, you would need to run the IDR wizard to create the IDR bootable image.  You don't run the wizard before your full backup because there would be no .dr file for the wizard to use.

[Shahin123]

Hi PKH,

Thanks for your update,

one more question, we have an about 30 windows 2008 R2 server in our network, should we create just one IDR bootable image for al of these servers? or for each server we need a diffirent IDR bootable image?

Thanks

[AmolB · Accepted solution]

For each server you will have to create a different IDR image as each will be having different configuration.

[pkh]

When you create a IDR bootable image for a server, it will contain the .dr file creaed with the latest backup of this server.  By right, you are suppose to re-create the IDR image after each backup so that it will contain the .dr file for the latest backup, but nobody would have the time to do so.  I only recreate the IDR bootable image when there is a change in the SP level of the OS installation disk.   If I need to do a IDR restore, I will just point the restore process to the latest .dr file.

When it comes to creating IDR bootable images, the important thing is the OS's and the SP level.  If you have more than 1 server with the same OS and SP level, then you can create just 1 bootable image.  If you create 1 image for each server, the only difference in the images is the .dr file in the image.  Let's say Server1 and Server2 are both Server 2008R2 and you use the IDR image for Server1 to restore Server2, then at a certain stage of the IDR restore process, you just have to direct the restore process to use a .dr file which is created by a backup of Server2 and BE will use that backup to restore Server2.  See my video on the IDR restore process.

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/videos/intelligent-disaster-recovery-idr-restore

BTW, I have 2 Server 2003 SP1 servers and I only have one IDR image for them.