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Backup Server

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I look after a network with 2 servers. Both are Dell Poweredge 2850’s. One is running SBS2003 (2 drives RAID 1, 73 GB) looking after mail and print sharing and the other is a DC running W2K3 (6 drives – 2 in RAID 1 34 GB, 43 in RAID 10 136 GB) handling file sharing and backup – using Arcserve v11 and an LTO 100GB tape drive. I am looking to setup a backup server, essentially a server that we can get up and running with a minimum of effort if either of the main servers fail – it may even be a server that we can pick up and take away in an environment type disaster.
I have a Dell Poweredge 700 with 240GB (RAID 0) of drive space. I am looking for suggestions on how best to set this up to be a backup server – automatic failover would be nice but not essential, data a day old would not be a problem (we do daily tape backups) either. Should I set it up as a DC and then do a daily restore of the data? Can I have a “backup” of the exchange part of SBS so I can restore the daily tapes? Should I look at Brightstor High Availability Server? Can I have 2 servers replicating to one box?

Any input would be much appreciated.

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youve got 2 DCs already, I can’t see the ROI or TCO in having 3 unless your this is a medium sized business and your right up there near the 75 CAL limitation. personally, I would move a GC over onto the DC running W2003. That way if the SBS box goes down, users can still find a GC to log in. Both DCs should be AD intergrated and peers, both have a GC. With that your fully redundant except for Exchange and any DFS storage you might have setup on the SBS box.

you backup daily? not knocking it incremental? differential?

Can you have a backup of the exchange part of SBS. You can configure the Exchange Server on SBS as a bridgehead server and have another exchange behind it. The prefered bridgehead is the SBS exchange server and the secondary as a bridgehead if the primary is not available.

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Looking at your situation,from what I can see,you have a patchwork of systems that are not meant to work together without a major upgrade of some sorts.
You have been M$ marketed.
SBS was meant to be a standalone product that could not possibly handle all of the products bundled in on one box.
So now you are in a situation where it would probably be better if you went to 2003 Advanced server and clustering and relicensed Exchhange to run on a clustered env.
This is going to cost you money,time and effort.

If you ever get in to a situation like this again,you should seriously look at Novell SBS 6.5.
It comes with a 2 server cluster license built in.
You can have up to 5 servers in a tree,no extra licensing required.
It is cheaper to buy and license.(up to 100 users).
$399 for a 5 user license vs $1499 for SBS 2003 Premium(the equilivent).

Another scenario would be to get a hold of Symantec Livestate Recovery ($1100).
Have it backup to a NAS devices .
Say 1 or two snapservers that you could rotate offsite.
Then to restore is very easy ,you boot the new server with the recovery disk and just restore to the new server(the hardware should be the same).Very fast ,very reliable).

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