Virtualization and Continuity

[ChrisSko]

Is it possible, and does it make sense to virtualize a server onto itself for disaster recovery purposes? Ex: if I have an Exchange server and I virtualize it onto itself, can I then change all the hooks to use the VM instead of the physical? That way if there was a problem, I could restore the VM to another server.

[weinstein5]

Not really - to virtualize onto itself really gains you nothing particularly in regards to continuity because if you are have problems with the hardware ,eams the virtualized image of itself should also not work - I would look at MSCS for clustering your exchange server or virtualize the whole environment and use VMware HA or osme of the other BCP products -

[ChrisSko]

The reason that I thought about doing this is that, right now I don't necessarily want to consolidate machines, but doing a nightly backup of a VM would allow me to drop that VM file onto another server if disaster struck.

[TomHowarth]

How would you manage the synchonisation of the live server and the VM you would still need to have some sort of backup strategy to restore the VM to a working state. for a start the computer account would not be in sync with the domain. and your Exchange Store would need updating. if you want Continuity then invest in MSCS for EXchange and SQL etc.

if you went the VM route, make sure the guest in not on the same machine as the Physical machine as it would defeat the object of doing it on a hardware failure.

Tom Howarth

VMware Communities User Moderator

[weinstein5]

my thoughts exactly Tom -

[ChrisSko]

I don't think that I explained things right. What I want to do is virtualize the server and no longer use the physical server "stuff". I basically want to switch from physical to virtual on the same box. There would be no need for any syncing because the original would not be production any more. I feel that a VM would allow me to backup nightly and then restore to another box if there was a problem.

[MattG]

For the money that it would cost you to buy ESX and not gain much flexibility, you could buy continuity by purchasing application replication software like Neverfail or XoSoft Wansync for Exchange and replicate to an Exchange VM on a VM Server (free) host. However, you will be required to license the 2nd Exchange Server as well.

-Matt

[ChrisSko]

Matt, I would not be running 2 Exchange servers. I would simply want to run it in a VM so that I can restore to another VMware Server if there was a problem.Rebuilding an Exchange server from scratch is beyond my scope of knowledge, so I was hoping that by going VM, it would be simple to drop the VM file on another VMware Server machine.

[oreeh]

In theory it is that simple provided you do the backups correctly.

[MattG]

You'd be better off figuring out the best practices for restoring Exchange rather than adding the complexity of a VM environment.

Exchange is not very difficult to restore. Also, you could use VSS inside of Windows 2003 to create nightly snaps of your Exchange database files.

-MattG

[ChrisSko]

Thanks for the input everyone. In the long run, I would hope to do a similar thing with other servers: SQL, Intranet, etc. I run a small shop (army of one), with 12 servers, each running one type of app. I just want a way of quickly restoring if a server were to crash.

[MattG]

If you can afford it, ESX with a couple of new beefed up 2U servers could run your servers and accomplish your goals. If you have the desire to learn VI3.5 than I think ESX is great for small companies.

-MattG

[ChrisSko]

Thanks again.

[williamarrata]

I would also look up all the best practices just to make sure you cover all your bases. I mean, if this were just a test environment compared to a production environment, I would be thinking it out differently.

Hope that helped.