Windows Tip: System restores made easy

November 30, 2007 —

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Here's another tip about how virtualization technologies can make your job easier
as an administrator. We all do regular system volume backups of our key servers,
right? But have you ever had to restore a backup to a different hardware platform?
Like when your 3-year old HP server dies and you try and restore it to a Dell
box because you've recently changed your vendor contract. The result of doing
a restore like that can be frustrating to say the least -- incompatible drivers
may cause your restored operating system to simply fail to boot! What's the
solution?

Virtualization. No matter what kind of box a virtualization technology like
Microsoft Virtual Server is running on, it presents the same virtualized hardware
platform to the guest operating system running on it. To learn more about this
idea, let's listen to Susan Bradley, the Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS)
MVP who also goes by the moniker The SBS Diva. The following tip was taken with
permission from a chapter Susan will be contributing to the upcoming Windows
Server 2008 Resource Kit from Microsoft Press:

"When determining the server platform on which you want to begin building
your security solution, don't overlook the issues and advantages of virtualization.
Typically, in a small environment, the resources for clustering are nonexistent
and restoring data to a bare server takes both time and introduces risks of
restoring to different hardware. Placing the entire server platform inside a
virtual server means that if the hardware has issues, it no longer becomes an
impediment to a fast restoration. As with any virtualization project there are
risks, however, including physical security issues, proper network configurations,
and last but certainly not least, supportability. In the small business space,
virtualization on a non-Microsoft platform is not supported unless you have
a premier support contract."

I couldn't have said it better, thanks Susan! The above tip was excerpted from
the Windows Server 2008 Security Resource Kit by Jesper M. Johansson and MVPs
with the Microsoft Security Team. Reprinted by permission of Microsoft Press.
All rights reserved. For more information, go to http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/11841.aspx.

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