Fail Over Server

[ESXi_2008]

I’m currently working on a project to setup DR site. Let me explain you the current setup. Dell R710,SAN and VMWare 4.0 most of the servers are VM.

 

Option 1. 3rd Party Company will fix a appliance on site, first full image of the serves is pushed to their data centre, after that only the changes are synced with data centre image. In the event of DR 3rd party company will switch the server on, few DNS changes , VPN fail over server will be up and running with in 30 min there SLA is 1 hour.

Option2. Buy Rack Space (Colo) in some data centre fix our own hardware (we have loads of serves with warranty and support). Take a image of the current server sysprep change name,etc... install replication software for fail over or build the server in new location use application level replication for SQL and Exchange using Double take or similar software and install Cisco or some secure VPN connection back to site.

 

Personally i like the option 2 as there is more control over what i can do and in future i can buy more space and install Virtual desktop and on the event of whole site disaster we can still connect to virtual desktop.

Please let me know if any of you have implemented similar solution or any guidance will be much appreciated.

 

 

I'm planning on doing a Project diary as well.

 

:)

[Cools]

Why you hosting server in a data centre?

and not on site ?

 

 

See IBM or HP they have some good set-ups.

[Cools]

is it not server Clustering you need ???

[TronXP]

What he is saying, is he wants to set up a disaster recovery site (i.e in a sperate location)

[broc]

If you are looking for a 'turnkey' DR solution, go for Option 1, let the DR service provider worry about maintaining the DR hardware & infrastructure in a state of readiness. Let them worry about the management, staffing, security, and environmental costs of their facility so you can get on with running your services for your end-users.

 

Any good service provider should be able to support you with the planning, testing and execution of a fail-over solution. Given your size of operation, any decent sized mature service provider will probably have an 'off the shelf' solution available.