Restoring a File & Print Server

[SMF_LLC]

Good afternoon, Symantec.

I am preparing disaster recovery documentation for one of my file & print servers and have a few questions. I'm new to disaster recovery, so please bear with me.

1. I have over 50 printers on Server A. Server A's hardware fails completely and a new chassis must be ordered (same make/model/OS). Will a full restore reinstall all of those printers + features for me or will I need to manually recreate all 50 of them?
2. I have about 20 network shares with specific permissions on Server A. Will a full restore recreate all of these shares, their permissions, etc. or will I need to manually recreate all of those, too?
3. Are user accounts recreated with their appropriate permissions?
4. Do I need to rejoin the failed machine to my domain?

I guess the bigger question here is "What does a full restore job NOT restore for me?" If anyone can answer this, it will clear a lot of the fog surrounding the top four questions. I never had to perform a full restore before, so I'm not sure of what's covered and what's not.

By the way, I am currently using Backup Exec 2010 R3 on a Windows 2008 R2 SP1 Standard box, using LTO-4 cartridges.

Thanks Symantec!

-Josh

[teiva-boy · Accepted solution]

If you are leveraging IDR, then most everything you would need would be handled with it.  permissions, shares, etc all restored.  

If it's a machine in which you rebuild the OS, patch, join to domain, then try to perform a restore..  Odds are you'll be doing a lot of cleanup and re-configuration.

Try out IDR, and test test test..  It's not a fun product to work with, but when setup right, it will work for what you want to do.

[CraigV]

...those permissions and user details are stored in the System State of the server. If you don't back that up, you will end up having to recreate everything.

So restore data, then the System State which will apply all the settings you mentioned above.

[AmolB]

If the disaster recovery goes through fine and if the server boots up after full restore then

1) Printers and its features will work  as they were prior to the disaster

2) Share will appear as they were earlier with permissions.

3) User accounts are not recreated but they are restored backup with permissions which were

associated with the accounts.

4) No need to join the server to the domain, after successfully disaster recovery server will appear

in the domain.

Full restore job restores everything which was available at the time of backup.

Note: Restore Order, 1st restore C drive then the system state reboot the server and then restore

other drives.

[SMF_LLC]

CraigV,

And what about the printers & their drivers?

Thanks, Josh.

[SMF_LLC]

I would have never thought to ask about restore order, but I'm glad you mentioned that. That's a very big help. Thanks Amol!

-Josh

[SMF_LLC]

I have toyed around with IDR, but haven't gotten serious about it. If I am not using it, and a server crashes beyond repair, will I recreate those shares/printers? My thoughts were as long as I match the RAID, disk config, OS, and hardware make/model, I should be able to restore the shares/printers as they were before the failure. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks, Josh

[CraigV]

...everything gets retained in the System State. As for the driver files themselves, I'd suggest backing those up to mitigate having to redownload them...