Test Server Restore

[Wwadsworth]

Hello LTT community,

 

I am a lone system admin for a small medical coding practice that has server 2012. I am wanting to make sure that I have a backup and restore process in place in the event it crashes. I am utilizing server backup for the C: drive (Going to my local PC)  and robocopy for D: drive (going to a NAS) as an incremental backup. My question is: If I were to do a restore on another system running the same server can the two conflict with each other? I don't want to knock the system down or cause any issues. I was hired on because of my basic knowledge of PC's from Geek Squad and my desire to learn. 

 

[dalekphalm]

On 23/08/2017 at 3:55 PM, Wwadsworth said:

Hello LTT community,

 

I am a lone system admin for a small medical coding practice that has server 2012. I am wanting to make sure that I have a backup and restore process in place in the event it crashes. I am utilizing server backup for the C: drive (Going to my local PC)  and robocopy for D: drive (going to a NAS) as an incremental backup. My question is: If I were to do a restore on another system running the same server can the two conflict with each other? I don't want to knock the system down or cause any issues. I was hired on because of my basic knowledge of PC's from Geek Squad and my desire to learn. 

 

When restoring the "test" server, you have to make sure that:

1. They aren't using the same IP (Or if they are, that the test machine isn't connected to the network), and

2. If an Active Directory Domain is involved, you DEFINITELY don't want both running on the same network

 

So if you have a separate isolated test network, you could use that. The problem is that if you need to use the network to do the restore, it's going to be difficult to test everything without taking down the main server.

 

I would suggest scheduling a test restore out of hours, and actually physically shut down the main server before starting the restore process.