2012 R2 - Virtualization test.
Each month we have a maintenance window and apply windows updates to all our servers. One of our customers has a local backup and DR device (a Datto Sirus) that backups up the servers and workstations and has the ability to perform local virtualizations. During one of our monthly reboots, my customer wants us to shut down all the servers and all the workstations and Virtualize the primary domain controller (2012R2StdDNS, AD, DHCP, File Shares), from the DR device to see he can login from this production workstation and access the file shares from the server. What do you think? Is it safe? Would I need to shut down the internet access too? I don't want to be in a real DR situation.
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David Johnson, CD
An untested DR is like an untested backup, totally useless and a waste of resources. When you need it you need to know that it works. Backups are essential but for DR what you want is replication from the hot to the cold items and a known replication frequency.. Different companies have different groups of items.. datastores may have a 5 minute frequency so that the oldest data is 5 minutes out of date, some items 15 minutes, and so forth.
ASKER
Thank you for your comments.
I know and have support on the DR system.
I know that if this was a Exchange server for example, and I brought it up "live" for a test, that if I didn't take precautions, it could pull email to the test server that will never make it to the production server when it I turned back on.
The server I want to test, with its real LAN IP, is the Domain Controller holding the FSMO roles, it has Active Directory, DNS Server, DHCP server and is a file server with shares. There are no other applications. All other workstations and servers (application servers and other DC's) will be off. Only one workstation will be turned on, login to the server and access the file share to open a few word and excel documents. Is there anything I should be concerned about doing this test?
Thank you,
I know and have support on the DR system.
I know that if this was a Exchange server for example, and I brought it up "live" for a test, that if I didn't take precautions, it could pull email to the test server that will never make it to the production server when it I turned back on.
The server I want to test, with its real LAN IP, is the Domain Controller holding the FSMO roles, it has Active Directory, DNS Server, DHCP server and is a file server with shares. There are no other applications. All other workstations and servers (application servers and other DC's) will be off. Only one workstation will be turned on, login to the server and access the file share to open a few word and excel documents. Is there anything I should be concerned about doing this test?
Thank you,