BMR for New Server Builds?

[Chuck_Stevens]

Anyone using Bare Metal Restore for new server builds? (i.e., for dropping an OS image on new hardware, as an alternative to Ghost)

[zippy]

Chuck,

You can bare metal a new box, and restore it to a new server, it takes the same IP and hostname and is kinda slow compared to ghost, ghost gives you more functionailty before the backup and restore.

Try it it cant hurt.

Your vendor can give you a test key that last for 30 days.

If I look through my emails I may be able to find it.

JD

[AKopel]

It's an interesting idea....
The biggest problem you would run into, is that you would want to reapply any hardware drivers after doing the restore if the hardware is different. (i.e. Proliant Support Pack for HP Servers)
In our experience, BMR to dissimilar works well, but there ARE non-present devices that I personally always want to cleanup before putting into service which makes the overall process much longer.

We ONLY do unattend installs and no ghosting for servers to verify the servers are clean. We don't build enough of them to justify the 40 minute savings you might get by ghosting.

I think alot of this will change with Longhorn as microsoft will 'officially' support and build in dissimilar image based technology.