What would you recommend for backing up windows 2003 server? The windows backup software won't work in my case - theres some bug there, microsoft is working on a fix but won't say when it will be done.

Ideally, I would like to put an image of the whole drive somewhere else, and I want to be able to make that image while the server is still up and running. I don't think ghost will do this. In fact, I don't know if its possible at all.

If its not possible, what backup software do you reccommend? The main application running on this server is SQL Server 2000, and I already back those files up on a regular basis. Its mainly the system state I'm worried about - I want to be able to restore from a backup and have everything up and running again with a minimum amount of fuss.

Thx

I use Acronis True Image as a ghost alternative using a boot disc. If you use it in Windows, it's supposed to do exactly what you describe. As I understand it, the Snap Restore feature can automatically create images of your drive in the background. When you need to restore an image, it will restore the system files first so you can actually use the machine as it's restoring the rest of the drive.

Note that they also have a server version that is incredibly expensive.

Thanks for the suggestions so far, I appreciate it.

I should probably go into some more detail here. I have 2 win2k3 enterprise x64 servers in a "server cluster" configuration. Its an active/passive cluster, one handles all the work, and the other one does nothing until the first one fails. Each server has a system drive on it (actually 2 drives in a raid 1 configuration), which has no user data on it at all other than the system state (active directory, etc) There are a few license servers running too. Both servers have a dual channel megaraid SCSI controller, and those both connect to a cluster ready external scsi array. The array consists of 8 physical drives, which are grouped in pairs into 4 RAID 1 sets. SQL Server, IIS, Perforce, etc all run on the files on these drives. I created a sql server maintenance plan to backup all the databases, manage the transaction logs, etc. I don't like the idea of using a special open file backup tool so I prefer to do it that way. I guess im just paranoid, but doing it that way makes it easier to restore databases when something goes wrong (at least thats how I feel anyway). As for the rest of the files on the shared storage array, its easy enough for something like Second Copy to copy the files off there to whereever you want to back them up once a night. As long as you run the backup job when theres not much going on, I don't see any problems with backing up things like perforce, etc etc.

That said, part of the problem is that the "system state" is really spread out all over the place. SQL server may be part of the system state, and I know that the quorum will be counted as part of the system state. I think this configuration causes Microsoft Backup to timeout every time I try to run it with some volume shadow copy error. I did look around the microsoft site for help with this problem, and it did say they were working on a fix for it. They said I could contact support (no idea what that will cost) where they might have a fix for that specific problem, or I could reconfigure my whole setup, or look for a 3rd party backup solution.

If I were you, I'd contact Veritas and ask them to help you with a NetBackup installation and/or Legato about a NetWorker installation. Sounds like you've thrown enough money at it that a big-time backup solution would be a drop in the bucket.

Do you have any experience with these? Are we talking thousands of dollars, or hundreds?

Depending on options, thousands to tens of thousands. Still worth it to get a quote, though, IMO.

Huh??? (Awakens from hibernation...)

I heard something about veritas, clustering and Windows 2003 server. If you email me with details (version, layout, problem, etc), I might be able to help you out unofficially. Among other things in my day job, I run a backup platform with Veritas NetBackup DataCenter on a Solaris master / media server, backing up a bunch of Solaris, HPUX, Win2K, Win2003, with Exchange 2000, Oracle and MS SQL clients, including clusters. I might be able to point you in the right direction, if you already have a lot of resources sunk into Veritas.

Note: I am not a Veritas employee, just a system engineer that was startled out of winter hibernation.