Using restore anywhere to migrate to different hardware

[Ashok_Karavadra]

Hi all,

We have two servers that we are looking to migrate to new hardware with mimimum fuss. I was wondering does the latest product (BackupExec System Recovery Server Edition) support migrating DCs??

Servers currently running Windows 2000 Server with no RAID setup (don't ask :) ) but the new servers will have RAID 5.

Has anyone successfully done this and if so please share some details, tips, tricks if possible.

Many thanks!

Ashok.

[Vladimir_Vucini]

Hi Ashok,

You can use LSR for migration/restore of DC servers. Please take a look at this document:

http://service1.symantec.com/support/on-technology.nsf/pfdocs/2006090711580260

Also, don't miss this white paper (mention in above document):

http://sea.symantec.com/protectingdc

Best regards,
Vladimir

[Ashok_Karavadra]

Hi Vladimir,

Many thanks for getting back on this, sorry for the late reply. I has a look at the links you mentioned in the post and i get the impression that its slightly complicated than i thought.

If an image is taken then why does it need to do a non-authoritive restore of AD on the target box.

I don't have a problem with the multi-processor issue so HAL shouldn't be an issue. Is it not possible to do a bare-metal restor on a new server and then boot up to see if AD is working correctly. This is the bit where i get confused on the article. It states that you need to backup the system state and then restore the system state after restoring the image.

I would have thought that the systemstate would have not changed since its its taking a complete image.

Apologies in advance if you haven't read the articles i'm refereing to.

Kind regards,

Ashok.

[techno_nerd]

Ashok,

The reason you use the NT Backup to backup the system state, is that even though you don't have a multi-processor, when you go to other hardware, the HAL may still have an issue with the new hardware, and make the AD not function.

This is clearly a precautionary method. I agree with Vladimir.

Thanks,

Technonerd

[Carlington_Buck]

Recently purchase Symantec System Recover Server.
Tested restoring windows 2003 server DC to a different Hardware, so far my testing has been unsuccessful . Submitted a case to Symantec over one week now and I am unable to receive a answer as to why restore anywhere is not working. I also tried a windows 2000 small business server to restore to a server that had identical hardware and DC unsuccessful restore. My opinion so far is the program works great for backing your data but somewhat not ready for dissimilar hardware restore.

[Mamoru_Usui]

Hi,all

Symantec Best Practices : Using Livestate Recovery 6.x or Backup Exec System Recovery to Backup and Restore A Microsoft Active Directory Domain Controller
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/on-technology.nsf/docid/2006090711580260

The image or recovery point must be restored back to exactly the same hardware from which it was taken. This is required because Windows uses some of the hardware identifiers to generate unique security identifier values. A different computer will have different hardware identifiers such as the network interface MAC address and disk drive serial numbers. This will result in different security identifiers being generated and can invalidate the security identifiers saved in the image or recovery point. Use of the Restore AnyWare function is therefore not supported for Domain Controllers.