How to restore AD in a Disaster Recovery Scenario

[jack schweigel]

The scenario would be:
- DC computer recovered from tape (Veritas Netbackup server);
- whatever AD replica that is restored from tape is OK;
- DC is also running DNS and dhcp;
- everything else is cooked,
only the Veritas Backup Server, the tape drive, and the
restored DC(w/AD, dns, dhcp) are the network.

Do I assume that after the restored DC is rebooted I can add users, login as
any user, new computers can be added to AD, etc - all the things you'd
expect to be doing as you stick the network back together(restoring other
servers, bringing up new workstations, getting users on the w/s doing their
jobs)?

What is expected as you restore additional DCs from tape?

Can anyone point to a document that tells how to recover a DC with AD in
this disaster recovery scenario?

 

[Nico]

I found this white paper to be a good place to start.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?
url=/technet/prodtechnol/Default.asp

 

[Nafiz Ahmed [MSFT]]

If this is the only dc in the domain, you really do not have any other
choiice other than restoring it from tape backup. If you have other dcs in
the domain make sure that replication is working fine between the functional
dcs. Then restore the other dc from tape back and do a regular restore. Make
sure that the tape back is not more than 60 days. Any backup which is more
than 60 days is not valid. After the resore make sure that it has replicated
the information from other dc and time is also in sync.

You can look at the following artcile as well for additional info:

How to Perform a Disaster Recovery Restoration of Active Directory on
WGID:491 ID: 263532
Best Practice Methods for Windows 2000 Domain Controller Setup WGID:324
ID: 216899

Nafiz Ahmed
Microsoft Enterprise Platform Support