I was under the impression you could not snapshot or backup a VM DC.

[edutech4schools]

At one of my primary schools I have 2 virtual DC's. One gets system state backed up as though it was a single standalone servers as I have always been informed not to take an entire VM backup or snapshot of a DC as it can not be restored without time rollback issues which borks AD, but I have just been reading the following which suggests otherwise.

 

Virtual Domain Controllers and Windows Server 2012 Improvements | Aidan Finn, IT Pro

 

Anyone doing this already?

[teejay]

Pre server 2012 then yes snapshotting domain controllers wasn't recommended, however from server 2012 onwards it does support snapshotting domain controllers. Your virtualisation software does need to be on a version that supports 2012 though.

[edutech4schools]

My host is server 2012r2, all VM's are Gen 2 server 2012r2.

 

I have been using MS backup on the host to backup our VM data server as Windows Server 2012r2 now supports VM backups but I have not been backing up the VM DC like this but have been doing in OS system state backups.

 

Do you think I am OK to use MS backup on the host to also backup the entire VM DC?

[Oaktech]

I think you should be OK to do that on 2012r2, I'm doing it, but I'm still running a low spec physical server as well. Because 'should be OK' is not a consolation when it's not OK!

[edutech4schools]

I have been trying to find any information on the web that says it's OK to backup the full vm DC from the Host. Almost everything I find apart from the link in my OP is based on Server 2008r2 and not 2012r2.

 

Can anyone find anything to support this method as I would really like to backup my DC along with my vm data server from the host.

[techy32]

We have once got major issue with our whole system ( SCCM wiped most of our servers including DC's ) and we restored them from Veeam backup.

 

We backup VMware infrastructure through Veeam. After 2012 you can backup whole VM DC.

 

So we are fully functional tested example of VM DC.

[psydii]

We have once got major issue with our whole system ( SCCM wiped most of our servers including DC's ) and we restored them from Veeam backup.

 

We backup VMware infrastructure through Veeam. After 2012 you can backup whole VM DC.

 

So we are fully functional tested example of VM DC.

 

OWCH.

 

I've had VEEAM SureBackup jobs that tested the restores of 2008R2 DCs on a nightly basis. Never had a problem, not officially a clean reboot, but they got over it and Exchange and other AD dependent services would start fine.

[edutech4schools]

Has anyone done this using Windows backup on the host?

 

Even MS site says to only do system state backups, so I am still a little concerned that even running the backup could cause an issue.

 

I will keep searching for info.