Backup Exec 10 IDR Option - Anyone using it?

[TigerDivision]

Hi all!

Is anyone using successfully the BE 10 IDR option? Does it do what it's supposed to do? I've read in their technical doc that if restoring to different hardware the processor must be of the same type. Difficult nowadays as servers are coming kitted out with Xeon 64-bit Processors and HT. Some of our production servers have 32-bit processors with/without HT. Therefore the IDR option cannot be used in such a scenario where a new server is required. Anyway I would welcome any comments on this.

TIA
Pierre

 

[wybnormal]

Does it work? Yes.. is it a good solution? ONLY if he hardware is exactly the same. This is a Windows limitation and not the software. This is also why that Bare Metal Restores for Windows is taking so long to be written by the various vendors. The official MS word on this is that you rebuild the server from disks and then restore just the date. Pain in the butt. But, if the hardware is the same or at least very, close you can pull it off. I've done successfully a few times and a few times, no way. IBMs seem to be the worst for this as they make changes to the motherboards/onboard bridges/video/SCSI that sends Windows reeling on the bootup. I tried to go from a dual PII to a Xeon and it never did work right. I got close but no cigar.

On the other hand, one of my dev boxes was toasted the other day and it took less than 20 minutes to put the entire box back up and running using the BMR technique.

What we are exploring for our older and very unique boxes is to use VMware to virtualize them and not worry about the hardware again.

MikeS

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