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Restore a DC asap

Hello.

I am solving this issue:

I am running 2 WS2008 DCs in a network.
I'd like to make a backup that in the case of one of the WS2008 crash will be able to restore the previous running state of OS with all components of AD ASAP on virtual machine. "Like nothing happened". With no sync issues with the other DC.

Services like

Any suggestions?
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Jason Crawford
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My suggestion is let it die and seize the FSMO roles on the other DC.  Not to minimize the importance of backups in case both DCs are lost, but if you have two DCs just create a new one with a new hostname and replicate from the alternate DC.  The problem with restoring is you will typically restore the FSMO roles you just seized so why go through the hassle.
When virtualized, just make backups of the whole VM
I hope you're not referring to a snapshot because you should never restore a domain controller from a VM snapshot.  Always restore from an application aware backup on the guest level.  Windows Server Backup will technically work although if you are using VMs I highly recommend Veeam.
When virtualized, just make backups of the whole VM
Obviously not. I said backup of whole VM
Hi,
well I don't see the difference between this question and your past one here :
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/29012787/Backup-of-system-state-VMware.html?anchor=a42080105¬ificationFollowed=186976591&anchorAnswerId=42080105#a42080105

And still don't see what you want more, but I will let other experts answer you.
Please close your questions once finished.
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Hello There

ASKER

Jason Crawford: Does Veeam have any special functions related to this question?
I am a little confused. How to get FSMO roles to another server if the first one completely died?

Shaun Vermaak:  I tried something like this with OracleVB (WS2008 VM - only one DC in network) several times (just testing it, we use VMware normally) but with 50% success. It made .ova files. Sometimes the VM just didn't start at all or started with errors and I lost all. Did you mean this? If yes, I wouldn't trust it as a backup.

Mr Torture: The previous question was about an sync issue. Considering you advise to create a new thread for my another questions, I did it.
I get 100% exporting/backing up VM and restore is trivial
I know this is trivial but I don't trust it because of my bad experiences. I don't know its behavior after successful import (if there will be any issues) and I don't want to solve it then in the case of urgency.
What is best backup practice for servers in domain?
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Jason Crawford
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Thank you for this explanation.