DISASTER PLANNING: Our experience and plans

My first post to Techsoup !
I just went through 5 days (volunteer time, too) of recovering a desktop. XP Home. I was going to move it to another pc (using *app moving* software) and in the middle of it, the "old" pc had a glitch. The time was mostly spent getting it back to "useable" so I could go ahead and move the apps. Then, the app software got a snag, I called the vendor, they said I installed it more than once (via pc id #), etc. It still has some issues.

I"d like to start some sort of bare-metal install program, maybe Ghosting regularly, but don"t want it to be too time consuming. Any ideas?

Also, I"ll be putting up a remote server with Freenas (a small, cool linux flavor) for file duplication. I"d really like to cluster (the server is Win 2003) but can"t justify the expense. I thought of a linux cluster, since the server is really only a NAS. We don"t have an Exchange server, but thought of putting up a linux version of such to help with centralized malware control.

Also, anyone using terminal services or the like to cut down on licensing and workstation administration?

Thanks.

Hi and welcome to TechSoup!

Without knowing what 'app moving' software you were using it's hard to comment directly - however my general experience with this type of utility hasn't been good. I find it easier to simply reinstall applications from original media than to try and move them from PC to PC (providing you have an adequate number of licenses for the number of PC’s). Most vendors will help you with any machine specific licenses when removing software from one machine to install on another.

Ghosting can be a good option – especially if you have an external drive available. Backup to tape is another good and proven method of archiving data and applications.

PS - You might want to try posting your questions on Freenas, terminal servers and clustering to some of our networking guru’s on the TechSoup Networks forum.

Good Luck!

Don

Welcome to TechSoup and thanks for sharing your story!

You seem to have a pretty interesting setup, how is FreeNAS working for you?

I think I share the same skepticism as Don on the "app moving" software, but I also suspect that you didn't have much of a choice, lost installation CD's, client don't know where the data is, XP Home ;)

How much time is too time consuming? If I can start from scratch, I always suggest keeping a separate data partition, formatted as FAT32, so I can read it reliably from Linux as well. If you go bare-metal that is manageable/easier to recover from even dd.

How are you envisioning using Terminal services specifically?

cheers,

Kevin

I am currently going about the process of using EMC Retrospect and external hard drives to backup the content of a PC (or Mac or Linux) box.

If the machine doesn't have a complex range of software packages, I'd be inclined to reinstall the OS and key applications and then restore the data. Otherwise I'd try the backup for recovering the OS and applications due to the extended time it will take to reinstall.

The big thing with backups is to ensure that they work, and that you have at least one stored offsite.

Cheers Gav

The app moving sofware is MoveMe. I've used it several times recently for different people and it's very efficient and thorough, but only (as I've learned) with the prereq that the 'old' pc is healthy.

Spearit (MoveMe) says that PCMover is newer and has a few more features. I'll use it next time. For the cost (under $50) it really has paid for itself each time I've used it. My business is this type of work and I dont' want to run up my fees for time to the customer any more than necesarry, it's not good for business. The cost of the softare is cheaper and faster than several hours of my fees, and I'd personally rather not have to do a from-scratch build just to move to a new pc. I assume :biglaugh; everyone that likes doing from-scratch builds for moving to a new pc has a list of where the Outlook or Outlook Express files are; how to export/import them when moving, how to move Favorites, folder settings, and all the little nuances that a user will put into their computer. All that is too much to mess with. I'd rather use the appmoving software and have it done in under an hour.

As for terminal services, I'd like to investigate that to cut down on workstation maintenance. Since I do the volunteer thing for our church, there is plenty to do and even when I was a net admin fulltime for other companies, I'd try to put myself out of a job by streamlining workstation mgt.
I could write a book about that. Some admins like to 'lock down' the features of a workstation (mostly out of ego because 'they had the power') but like I tell folks, the more restrictions you put in, the more you'll have to manage. KISS is the way to do.
Keep it easy for another person to pick up after you and keep the system going.
DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT.

"Write the vision on tablets, so he that reads it may run with it". Perfect advice.

Another thought: From my previous days as a Novell admin, I just loved using Zenworks. SMS would be the MS equiv, but I've heard that it doesn't do a great job and MS hasn't supported it as much.

I could do remote management, send an update to many all at once, do 'lights out' upgrades, even send a new image to many pc's at once. When I taught in a local college I did that. After the students were done with a particular module, I could Ghost Multicast a new image to 24 pc's at once and have them done in 15 minutes. If you depend on mgt software like Zenworks or Red Carpet, or SMS, keep a duplicate of your admin pc up to date and offsite in case of disaster, then you can use that functionality to get back quicker. Even if you just shoot a copy of the OS to several pc's with the 'basics' like Office, Adobe reader, Winzip, etc. that would be a start. Include your vertical apps, etc. Even if you have to do updates afterwards, it's still a lot faster doing 24 pc's. Would you want to build 24 from scratch, putting the disk in the drive for every app? Man, that's WAY too time consuming and in a disaster, time is of the essence; that's why we have the planning in the first place.
Summary: Investigate a workstation mgt solution. It could save you a bunch of time.

I assume everyone that likes doing from-scratch builds for moving to a new pc has a list of where the Outlook or Outlook Express files are; how to export/import them when moving, how to move Favorites, folder settings, and all the little nuances that a user will put into their computer

Hi Boethos,

One of the more useful utilities to come out of Microsoft recently is the User State Migration Tool; a utility that migrates all the above settings (and a lot more including files saved elsewhere on the HDD) from one PC to another quickly and easily - and being 'scriptable' it can be tailored to almost any migration scenario.

USMT is really well worth looking into if you are involved in computer upgrades or replacements and are finding it time consuming moving or replicating user-specific settings.

We use USMT in conjunction with an Altiris Deployment system so upgrading an old computer to a new machine is really a hands-free operation - We just drop the job in Altiris and it's done in about an hour - However Altiris is not required to get benefit from USMT.

Cheers, Don