Backups and tombstone life setting

[Guest]

Hi all,
Some basic questions. I'm an administrator of a Windows 2000 standalone
server. How can I verify that it is a standalone server e.g. not a domain
controller or member server. How can verify that Active Directroy is not
installed on it. With regard to Active Directory if it is not installed does
the Tombstone life value not have any impact with regard to the longevity of
tape backups?

Thks
WeatherMan

 

[Mark-Allen Perry]

How can I verify that it is a standalone server e.g. not a domain
To check for domain server or simple stand-alone server status:
Go to Control Panel, System, Network Identification: it should state either Workgroup or Domain


If it is a Workgroup server, then it will NOT have an AD installed.

If it is part of a domain, then check the Event Logs. If there is NO "Directory Services", then it isn't an AD of some type. You can also look at the list of Services. The AD stuff stands out quite easily.


I have never seen any connection between "tombstones" and Backups. But would stand to be corrected if there is one. Tombstones are expiration dates on deleted objects, which enable them to be held past deletion in case someone needs to restore them. WINS also uses tombstones: it show a black church cross as a notation it's been "tombstoned".

As for Backups, this is something I've never heard of. What backup software are you using?

Hope this helps.

--
Mark-Allen Perry
ALPHA Systems
Marly, Switzerland
mark-allen_AT_mvps_DOT_org

Hi all,
Some basic questions. I'm an administrator of a Windows 2000 standalone
server. How can I verify that it is a standalone server e.g. not a domain
controller or member server. How can verify that Active Directroy is not
installed on it. With regard to Active Directory if it is not installed does
the Tombstone life value not have any impact with regard to the longevity of
tape backups?

Thks
WeatherMan

 

[Guest]

Mark-Allen Perry
Thanks for your tips, that clears things up for me somewhat. My server is a
workgroup server and would therefore not appear to have AD installed.
With regard to the relationship between tombstone life and AD, the following
is a quote from the MS white paper Windows 2000 Server Disaster Recovery
Guidelines.
"when restoring system state, your recovery plan should take into account
the fact that the age of the backup tape should not exceed the Active
Directory Tombstone Lifetime... (default is 60 days). If a tape older than
the tombstone is restored, the restore APIs will reject all of the data as
out of date"

So if I don't have Active Directory installed, I'm asking myself is the
tombstone life an issue with regard to the age of the backup at all?

Rgds
WeatherMan

 

[Mark-Allen Perry]

Good point and I forgot about the tombstones on AD. Yes, you're correct on the article. The restore of system state (which would include the AD) would be limited by tombstone date.

If you don't have an AD on the server, then (reading between the lines in the doc and from experience) you won't have any tombstones to worry about. Of course, one would have to imagine trying to restore a system state older than 60 days. I won't do it in a production environment and probably not do it on one of my test machines either.

Does this help?

--
And always try the MS KB first before posting.
The answer is probably already posted.
MS KB: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;KBHOWTO
----
Mark-Allen Perry
ALPHA Systems
Marly, Switzerland
mark-allen_AT_mvps_DOT_org

Mark-Allen Perry
Thanks for your tips, that clears things up for me somewhat. My server is a
workgroup server and would therefore not appear to have AD installed.
With regard to the relationship between tombstone life and AD, the following
is a quote from the MS white paper Windows 2000 Server Disaster Recovery
Guidelines.
"when restoring system state, your recovery plan should take into account
the fact that the age of the backup tape should not exceed the Active
Directory Tombstone Lifetime... (default is 60 days). If a tape older than
the tombstone is restored, the restore APIs will reject all of the data as
out of date"

So if I don't have Active Directory installed, I'm asking myself is the
tombstone life an issue with regard to the age of the backup at all?

Rgds
WeatherMan

 

[Guest]

Hi Mark-Allen Perry,
Just to give a little background information. The server in question is used
to process weather satellite data in near real time. On the server we have
specialised image processing software which takes in the satellite data and
converts it into a number of products. The data itself only has a useful life
of 15 minutes, after that a new set arrives to repace the previous set. What
is most important for us is to backup the system OS, the processing software,
and the configuration of the processing software and not the data. Some of
the configurations are held in the registry. The sever may not be touched for
weeks on end once it is set up with little or no changes made to its
configuration. The previous generation of this software ran on Digital VMS
and experience as shown that a full back up every 3 months or so was more
than adequate. The same will be true of our new Windows 2000 server. So what
we want to make sure is that if we try to restore from a tape older than 60
days that it won't cause problems. The software I'm planning to use for
backups is Yesomite TapeWare 7 (Dell version 2.1) enhanced suite as
recommeded by Dell (the server is a DEll Power Edge 2600). It includes an
option for a bare metal rebuild which is what I'm most interested in.

Hope this gives you an idea of what were trying to do.
Best regards,
WeatherMan

 

[Mark-Allen Perry]

Thanks for the background. Sounds very interesting BTW.

A suggestion would be to establish a 'backup set' for just those folders (and/or disks) that you require, plus the system state. This could be, in my humble opinion, restored at any time in the future, since there are no 'date sensitive areas to worry about.

Does this help?

--
And always try the MS KB first before posting.
The answer is probably already posted.
MS KB: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;KBHOWTO
----
Mark-Allen Perry
ALPHA Systems
Marly, Switzerland
mark-allen_AT_mvps_DOT_org

Hi Mark-Allen Perry,
Just to give a little background information. The server in question is used
to process weather satellite data in near real time. On the server we have
specialised image processing software which takes in the satellite data and
converts it into a number of products. The data itself only has a useful life
of 15 minutes, after that a new set arrives to repace the previous set. What
is most important for us is to backup the system OS, the processing software,
and the configuration of the processing software and not the data. Some of
the configurations are held in the registry. The sever may not be touched for
weeks on end once it is set up with little or no changes made to its
configuration. The previous generation of this software ran on Digital VMS
and experience as shown that a full back up every 3 months or so was more
than adequate. The same will be true of our new Windows 2000 server. So what
we want to make sure is that if we try to restore from a tape older than 60
days that it won't cause problems. The software I'm planning to use for
backups is Yesomite TapeWare 7 (Dell version 2.1) enhanced suite as
recommeded by Dell (the server is a DEll Power Edge 2600). It includes an
option for a bare metal rebuild which is what I'm most interested in.

Hope this gives you an idea of what were trying to do.
Best regards,
WeatherMan

 

[Guest]

Hi Mark-Allen Perry,
Thanks for your suggestion. I think it would be a good idea to run a small
backup set every night and perhaps a full one every two months. I'll run this
idea by the software suppliers.

Best regards,
WeatherMan

 

[Mark-Allen Perry]

Another suggestion is weekly full, and daily incremental. Then roll the tapes every 3 or 4 weeks. In the past this keeps the restore (which is why we do backups....) down to manageable level. Hate to spend 2 hours a day on backups but 2 days doing a restore. Normally it's the restore time which is more important.

Just a thought.

--
And always try the MS KB first before posting.
The answer is probably already posted.
MS KB: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;KBHOWTO
----
Mark-Allen Perry
ALPHA Systems
Marly, Switzerland
mark-allen_AT_mvps_DOT_org

Hi Mark-Allen Perry,
Thanks for your suggestion. I think it would be a good idea to run a small
backup set every night and perhaps a full one every two months. I'll run this
idea by the software suppliers.

Best regards,
WeatherMan