Have 2 servers used purely for storage of business data (server a) and the second server (server b) to be used purely to back as a backup of the data. This server (server b) is then to be backed up at a certain time to a tape device.
Both servers will be running 2003 server and on the same LAN.
So will Windows DFS provide this functionality ? I guess from looking at functionality DFS is used mainly (in conjunction with FRS) to distribute resources and data over a number of servers and provide resilience. The ability to separate one server to contain all the data and available to backup is the fuctionality required.
I guess there must be a software solution to this. The obvious solution is using goof old XCOPY but this fails with files not using the 8.3 format.
Appreciate any advice
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I have a simliar situation, I used robocopy which is a part of win 2003 resource kit, I created a batch file that runs on the server with the backup software and copies all data as it changes. Then use backup exec to backup the data on a night.
http://www.ss64.com/nt/rob
Although at the moment I am testing backup exec 10d, which is a true disk to disk to tape system. This seems really robust and straight forward to use so I would take a look.
Hope this helps
DJW
Brightstor Arcserve 11.5 also has a disk staging option which is what we use to backup our fileshare server. It does the inital backup to disk then schedules a job to offload it to tape. You can set aging options on how long the files stay on disk. These files are for backup only though...would not work as a failover option.
McSween,
To get the bit replication offered in Windows 2003 R2 do you have to use the new DFS Replication Engine service ?
Or will you still benefit from bit replication when using DFS replicated with FRS between Windows 2003 R2 servers ?
Which version do your domain controllers and Active directory schema need to be to support bit replication ?
(We found that although we have Windows 2003 R2 Storage servers in use, not all promised functionality upgrades, i.e. multiple DFS domain roots, were available as we still have a mixture of Windows 2000 & Windows 2003 domain controllers. Active directory schema version is now Windows 2003 R2 / Exchange 2003 compliant, domain controller upgrades to be completed in October 2006. )
If you have 2003 installed and apply the R2 upgrade you have to upgrade the roles that server may already have installed (ie DFS replication/Print Server, etc..) This will give you the new R2 functionality. Bit replication will work between all R2 servers. When you upgrade the role the new DFS replication service gets installed (which isn't called FRS anymore but I forget it's new name atm)
Business Accounts
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by: mcsweenPosted on 2006-09-29 at 08:31:21ID: 17628237
DFS combined with FRS in 2000 or 2003 server will provide this functionality. I suggest moving on up to R2 if you want to use DFS for this function because of the new bit replication. This new replication only replicates the bits in a file that have changed instead of replicating the entire file each time it's changed. Everything you want to do will be handled by DFS. You can setup the "backup" server as a failover or you can set this up to load balance between them. Here's a link to the MS Step by Step guide to R2 DFS.
http://technet2.microsoft.