Introduction
"Complete hardware failure" are three words no IT administrator ever
wants to hear. That is because a complete hardware failure is one of
the most common reasons for a server to go down — and to most admins,
recovering a server is one of the most time-consuming and tedious
tasks to perform. Whether your small or mid-sized business is
running one or a handful of servers, there is no doubt any server
failure is costly in terms of lost business and productivity. Find
out what is involved with recovering a server, and learn about a
remote recovery solution that can take the agony out of recovery.
Recovery process
When a server does down, everything on it — applications, original
system configurations, updates, etc. — is gone. Recovering a server
is not fun, it is not easy, and the complicated process leaves IT
admins holding their breath that each of the following steps
involved goes smoothly:
- To start the recovery, it will need to be determined whether the hard drive can be repaired or if it needs to be completely replaced.
- Then another server on which to recover needs to be identified — this can be difficult because it needs to have the identical hardware as the server that crashed.
- The original disks containing the critical system configuration information need to be located and run.
- The hard drive needs to be repartitioned and formatted.
- The operating system needs to be reinstalled.
- All of the operating system service packs need to be reinstalled — and — a reboot is required after every service pack is installed.
- All of the drivers must be reinstalled (and reboots happen again).
- The profiles must be added.
- The backup applications need to be reinstalled so the data can finally be retrieved.
In some instances this process can take days, monopolizing one or more of your IT staff’s time — and slowing down your business — for the whole time. Valuable manpower is spent working on the problem when it could otherwise be spent working on other critical tasks. Especially for small and mid-sized businesses — where IT teams are often small and already stretched thin — server recovery is an unwelcome drag on resources.
A better way
Most of the steps listed above, and many other concerns related to
server recovery would be eliminated with a solution such as Symantec
Backup Exec System Recovery. Backup Exec is a rapid server recovery
solution designed for small and mid-sized businesses that is both
cost-effective and easy to use. When IT disaster strikes, businesses
can quickly restore failed systems in minutes to a specified point
in time without taking hours or days to manually rebuild and restore
systems. Backup Exec even breaks the barrier of having to recover
systems to the identical hardware platform where recovery points
were created and eliminates the high costs of having to maintain
duplicate hardware solely for the purposes of system recovery in the
event of an emergency. Businesses with older hardware environments
that fail can restore their systems to newer and more updated
hardware. Restoration to new hardware can be accomplished without
having to reinstall and reconfigure operating systems, device
drivers, applications, and system settings — making it quick and
easy. Also, the new Backup Exec version 11d provides support in a
complete 64-bit environment for businesses that have adopted
Microsoft Exchange 2007.
Remote system recovery can be achieved with the Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery LightsOut Restore capability. A remote administrator can conduct bare-metal restorations simply by connecting via a secure remotely controlled interface. For example, if a new patch or application causes system corruption, an administrator can perform a bare metal restore without being physically at the server. The system can easily be rolled back to a previous recovery point.
Conclusion
There are many things that can bring a server down — complete
hardware failure is a common culprit. Small and mid-sized businesses
are never 100% immune to the possibility of a server crash, and when
it happens it seems like there is never enough time or staff
resources to deal with the problem. Symantec Backup Exec System
Recovery is a solution that will help keep your business running,
even if the server fails, without skipping a beat.
from Symantec