Yes, the method you described should work. You will need to go through the setup and configuration of SBS 2K3 on the backup server, and then activate it. There should not be any issues with the product keys since both servers cannot be running on the network at the same time. As you probably already know, SBS has to be the primary DC so you can only have one of them up at a time or it will force a 30 minute shutdown on both of them.
If they are the exact same hardware configuration then another option would be to just move the hard drives over. If they use the same RAID controller then you could move the HDD's to the backup server and then boot up like normal. The only thing you would have to do is to import the foreign configuration via the RAID controller BIOS. I believe 2K3 was the first OS that hardware matching was added within the OS, so you may also need to reactivate the product key through the OS if you swap the drives because of the MAC address changes that will be detected on the hardware.
You will want to put the hard drives in the same slot numbers on the backup server that they were in on the original server to proivde the best possibility for success. Be sure that you have a good backup before you attempt to move the drives over.
I'd virtualize..... Let the Hypervisor handle the no down time / HA.....
I would agree; 2 ESXi hosts with shared storage (e.g. an NFS server or an iSCSI SAN) would allow for virtual machine failover (free ESXi5 could do a manual failover pretty easily, and with VMware's Essentials Plus package you get automatic failover (HA)).
You have peaked my interest with the virulization. I am going to have to take a look at this option as well. If you know of any good resource(s) to point me to i would be ver appreciative. I have zero experience working with Virtulization. Thanks.
Daniel My
10 Elder
•
6.2K Posts
1
December 28th, 2011 13:00
Hello Traymond61
Yes, the method you described should work. You will need to go through the setup and configuration of SBS 2K3 on the backup server, and then activate it. There should not be any issues with the product keys since both servers cannot be running on the network at the same time. As you probably already know, SBS has to be the primary DC so you can only have one of them up at a time or it will force a 30 minute shutdown on both of them.
If they are the exact same hardware configuration then another option would be to just move the hard drives over. If they use the same RAID controller then you could move the HDD's to the backup server and then boot up like normal. The only thing you would have to do is to import the foreign configuration via the RAID controller BIOS. I believe 2K3 was the first OS that hardware matching was added within the OS, so you may also need to reactivate the product key through the OS if you swap the drives because of the MAC address changes that will be detected on the hardware.
You will want to put the hard drives in the same slot numbers on the backup server that they were in on the original server to proivde the best possibility for success. Be sure that you have a good backup before you attempt to move the drives over.
Thanks
JOHNADCO
2 Intern
•
847 Posts
0
December 28th, 2011 14:00
I'd virtualize..... Let the Hypervisor handle the no down time / HA.....
Best of luck with it.
Dev Mgr
4 Operator
•
9.3K Posts
0
December 29th, 2011 12:00
I would agree; 2 ESXi hosts with shared storage (e.g. an NFS server or an iSCSI SAN) would allow for virtual machine failover (free ESXi5 could do a manual failover pretty easily, and with VMware's Essentials Plus package you get automatic failover (HA)).
Traymond61
1 Rookie
•
8 Posts
0
December 29th, 2011 14:00
You have peaked my interest with the virulization. I am going to have to take a look at this option as well. If you know of any good resource(s) to point me to i would be ver appreciative. I have zero experience working with Virtulization. Thanks.