techie08 Posted July 8, 2015 Author Posted July 8, 2015 Our Veeam backups are sequential and the DC's are the first 2 to get backed up. We also use Redstor to back up offsite and these do happen at the same time but for not for any technical reason So you backup DC1 first then once complete, you backup DC2?
truebluesteve Posted July 8, 2015 Posted July 8, 2015 So in terms of backups using Veeam, should i definatly backup both virtual DCs at the same time or seperate them by half an hour or so? Also is there any special config required on the 2012r2 DCs? I just read about time synchronisation and the virtual DCs should poll an external time source. Is this correct? It really doesn't matter - personal preference really as long as you do both within a few hours to ensure they don't get too far out of sync. No special configurations as far as I am aware, and not any that I have done! When you say poll an external time source, do you mean for NTP purposes or some other?
truebluesteve Posted July 8, 2015 Posted July 8, 2015 So you backup DC1 first then once complete, you backup DC2? Yep - that's how Veeam is set up here as we had some performance issues with parallel processing. The backups take a very short for the most part - 20 mins for incrementals 1
techie08 Posted July 8, 2015 Author Posted July 8, 2015 It really doesn't matter - personal preference really as long as you do both within a few hours to ensure they don't get too far out of sync. No special configurations as far as I am aware, and not any that I have done! When you say poll an external time source, do you mean for NTP purposes or some other? Yes. Making sure the DCs sync with an external NTP and not using vsphere to sync the time. I think its a reg key that needs to be changed so that it points to an external NTP.
aleach2 Posted July 8, 2015 Posted July 8, 2015 How far apart do you back up each DC? We have a gap of around an hour between our DCs. Just in case the first job fails and need to retry.
truebluesteve Posted July 8, 2015 Posted July 8, 2015 Yes. Making sure the DCs sync with an external NTP and not using vsphere to sync the time. I think its a reg key that needs to be changed so that it points to an external NTP. Ours point to a couple of external sources if my memory serves me correctly and Vsphere points to the DC. I think!
bicky Posted July 8, 2015 Posted July 8, 2015 Hyper-v cluster require one to have a dc outside the cluster or a physical dc
ADMaster Posted July 8, 2015 Posted July 8, 2015 Yes you need to disable the host / guest time sync for the DC and set your PDC role holder to sync to an external source. I got myself into a bit of a loop when I setup my first virtual DC all the clocks kept jumping 5 minutes ahead. The host hardware clock was off which put the DC off, then they kept syncing the wrong time to the rest of the network. If you setup a 2012 DC check its time settings. I had my 2008 server as the authoritative time server for the network and the virtual 2012 decided to take over and got everything out of sync. The 2008 has since retired and 2012 is now authoritative.
bashy Posted July 8, 2015 Posted July 8, 2015 Question if you back up both dc's what happens when you need to restore one?Will this not cause major issue with the AD being out of sync? And if you have spilt all the roles across both,will your domain not keep functioning. We have multiple domains with dc's in each and only backup the one with all the fsmo roles on. And they are all virtual.
edutech4schools Posted July 9, 2015 Posted July 9, 2015 Question if you back up both dc's what happens when you need to restore one?Will this not cause major issue with the AD being out of sync? If you still have a working DC you would probably move the roles on to the working server, install new OS, add to domain, make dc and let it synchronize, move the roles back. I would restore the backed vm DC using the backup if I lost all DC's Well that is the way I would do it.
bashy Posted July 9, 2015 Posted July 9, 2015 Yes that is we would do as well. Was trying to raise the issue about restoring a DC into a live environment.
pantscat Posted July 9, 2015 Posted July 9, 2015 To be frank, that's not great advice. If you "lose" a DC you'll need to remove all references for it from AD otherwise you'll have orphaned records in DNS and AD - this will lead to all sorts of issues. The best thing is, assuming you've still got another DC running, do a non-authorative restore of the DC you want to restore, this will then read all of the config from the live DC and update itself. If you wanted to restore AD to a historical point in time, then you'd perform an authorative restore. Veeam is a great option it will always do a non-authorative restore by default.
sparkeh Posted July 9, 2015 Posted July 9, 2015 Hyper-v cluster require one to have a dc outside the cluster or a physical dc Pre server 2012 yes, post 2012 no, this is no longer the case.
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now