The Windows Server Backup application that is built in to Windows
Server versions 2008 and later is a little gold mine, and I’ve written about it before, as well as ways to manage it.
Windows Server 2012 continues the Windows Backup application legacy,
which is good news; it’s a great feature and I’m glad they didn’t mess
with it. This feature is particularly useful to restore the computer to a
usable state after a failed application or buggy update installation in
a low-drama fashion.
The reason the built-in Windows Server
Backup application is so valuable is that it does a sophisticated and
reliable job of server backup that is absolutely mission-critical yet is
often seen as adding cost, complexity, or third-party applications into
the solution. My maxim, “all employed network administrators have
current backup” remains true, regardless of the number of ways to
achieve dependable backup.
From virtual machine (VM) snapshots (on
the virtualization or storage platform), to off-site vaulted media
backups, there are layers of cost and complexity that may be necessary
for some data. However, I can think of no easier way to add the job
security benefit of good backup to the network administrator today.
It’s
not unwise to furnish some or all your host and VM resources with
dedicated local storage for Windows Server Backup images, if possible
using alternative disk controllers or spindles used by the computer
being backed up. Using removable storage such as USB 2.0 and 3.0 hard
drives is supported on physical computers. Provision VMs with virtual
hard drives (VHDs) dedicated for backup.
Restore options in Windows Server Backup
If
you have been performing daily backups of your Windows Server 2012
computer, and you decide that you need to roll back an entire server to a
certain date—ideally you need an application-consistent, point-in-time,
complete disk image to restore from. If you select the Recover action
from the Actions Pane within the Windows Server Backup application, and
then select the date and time of the desired backup to restore from, you
have the option to view what items are recoverable in that backup. Figure A shows what’s available for recovery on a Windows Server 2012 computer running Exchange Server 2013.
Figure A
Viewing the recoverable items in a Windows Server 2012 restore operation to verify what was backed up.
If
you just want to restore files and folders, or applications like
Exchange, you can proceed to complete the restore operations from within
the Windows Server Backup application. However, if your intention is to
really recover the entire computer, you will receive a notice like that
shown in Figure B. Basically you are prompted to boot the computer from the Windows Setup disk.
Figure B
Selecting the Recovery Type when you need to restore files and folders or applications.
System recovery from the Windows Setup disk
If
the computer is a virtual machine (VM), provided with two virtual hard
disks (VHDs), one for the computer and one for the backup, the system
restore operation is pretty simple. To begin the restore, connect a
Windows Server 2012 setup DVD or .ISO file image to the VM, start the VM
and Press any key to boot from CD or DVD. If the backup is on a
different medium than a VHD, or it’s a physical computer involved, make
sure that storage media is available to the computer that will boot the
setup DVD.
The first Windows Setup screen will prompt you for your
language, country, and keyboard type. After clicking Next, instead of
clicking the install button, select the Repair your computer option in the lower left of the screen as indicated in Figure C.
Figure C
Select the Repair your computer option to access the system restore feature.
At the next screen seen in Figure D, take care to select the Troubleshoot button.
Figure D
The Troubleshoot button is what you want to proceed with system restore.
Finally, clicking on System Image Recovery in the Advanced options page as shown in Figure E will start the Windows Server Backup application in restore mode.
Figure E
System Image Recovery is your path to re-image the computer to a previous point in time.
After
selecting System Image Recovery from the Advanced options page,
attached storage to the VM or physical computer is searched for
recoverable backup media image(s). Assuming your backup media is
attached and discovered, confirm the target operating system as seen in Figure F.
Figure F
Confirming the target operating system to be restored.
The
Reimage your computer wizard will launch. Follow these steps to restore
the system image to a specific past date. Everything on the computer
will be replaced with the information in the system image.
Check the Select a system image option and click Next.
Select
the system image to restore from. If you don’t see the image available,
the Advanced button will let you add drivers to support other removable
or fixed media where the backup might be located.
At the Select the date and time of system image to restore page, scroll to locate the desired image and click Next. Figure G shows an image from a month ago (6/22/2013) being selected.
If you have no problems with the disk format or partition, you can click Next at the Choose additional restore options page.
Click Finish and then Yes at the final Re-image your Computer confirmation. The restore process will begin and could take from a few minutes to a few hours.
Considerations for restored images
After
the server is successfully restored, optionally disconnect the Windows
Server 2012 installation media and restart the restored computer. Some
considerations about restored system images:
Use the most
recent successful backup, unless you know you need to select a
historical point in time. The older the restored system image, the
higher the chances the computer account password in AD will have changed
from the one in the image, and you may have domain re-join issues that
are difficult or impossible to resolve.
If you restore an
older system image, shares may need to be manually re-created for
folders that were shared after the date of the restored image.
Restoring system images of AD domain controllers (DCs) requires careful attention and especially in a domain with more than one DC.
A dynamic disk can contain an unlimited number of volumes that function much like primary partitions on a basic disk, but you cannot mark an existing dynamic disk as active. When you create a volume on a dynamic disk using the Disk Management snap-in in Windows Server 2012, you choose from the following five volume types: Simple Volume:
Simple volume Consists of space from a single disk. After you have created a simple volume, you can extend it to multiple disks to create a spanned or striped volume, as long as it is not a system volume or boot volume. You can also extend a simple volume into any adjacent unallocated space on the same disk or, with some limitations, shrink the volume by deallocating any unused space in the volume. Spanned Volume: Spanned volume Consists of space from 2 to 32 physical disks, all of which must be dynamic disks. A spanned volume is essentially a method for combining the space from multiple dynamic disks into a single large volume. Windows Server 2012 writes to the spanned volume by filling all of the space on the first disk and then fills each of the additional disks in turn. You can extend a spanned volume at any time by adding disk space. Creating a spanned volume does not increase the disk’s read/write performance, nor does it provide fault tolerance. In fact, if a single physical disk in the spanned volume fails, all of the data in the entire volume is lost. Striped Volume: Striped volume Consists of space from 2 to 32 physical disks, all of which must be dynamic disks. The difference between a striped volume and a spanned volume is that in a striped volume, the system writes data one stripe at a time to each successive disk in the volume. Striping provides improved performance because each disk drive in the array has time to seek the location of its next stripe while the other drives are writing. Striped volumes do not provide fault tolerance, however, and you cannot extend them after creation. If a single physical disk in the striped volume fails, all of the data in the entire volume is lost. Mirrored Volume: Mirrored volume Consists of an identical amount of space on two physical disks, both of which must be dynamic disks. The system performs all read and write operations on both disks simultaneously, so they contain duplicate copies of all data stored on the volume. If one of the disks fails, the other continues to provide access to the volume until the failed disk is repaired or replaced. RAID-5 Volume: RAID-5 volume Consists of space on three or more physical disks, all of which must be dynamic. The system stripes data and parity information across all of the disks so that if one physical disk fails, the missing data can be re-created using the parity information on the other disks. RAID-5 volumes provide improved read performance, because of the disk striping, but write performance suffers, due to the need for parity calculations.
You’re no longer limited to the handful of colors Windows 8 supported
for the Start screen. As shown in Figure 1, you can select almost any
color you want by opening the Settings charm and then selecting
Personalize. You can also select your own desktop wallpaper, though you
can’t select a different image as your wallpaper. Figure 1 You can now select custom colors for the Start screen.
Windows
8.1 also makes your Start screen more dynamic by using motion accents.
Basically, graphics move with your Start screen, providing an
interesting, almost three-dimensional effect. Watch the video at the
link provided at the beginning of this section to see motion accents in
action.
As Figure 6-10 illustrates, the TCP/IP protocol networking stack on the Microsoft Windows platform is implemented using a dual IP layer approach. This means for example that ■Only a single implementation of transport layer protocols such as Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is needed for both IPv4 and IPv6 communications. ■Only a single implementation of framing layer protocols—such as Ethernet (802.3), Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP), and mobile broadband (802.11)—is needed for both IPv4 and IPv6 communications. This dual IP layer TCP/IP stack is implemented on the following Windows platforms:
■Windows 8 ■Windows 7 ■Windows Vista ■Windows Server 2012 ■Windows Server 2008 R2 ■Windows Server 2008
Two of these cmdlets are new, and they both relate to virtual machine eventing, a minor new feature in Windows Server 2012 that is not well documented at the time of this writing. According to Get-Help and Windows PowerShell documentation at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh848462, “[v]irtual machine eventing keeps Hyper-V PowerShell objects updated without polling the virtual machine host.” You should be aware that it is enabled by default, and you can use the cmdlets Enable-VMEventing and Disable-VMEventing to reenable and disable the feature, respectively. Use Table 5-1 to review some of the important Windows PowerShell cmdlets and other commands that relate to server monitoring. (More cmdlets are available to manage events. For a full list, type get-command *event* | sort noun,verb at a Windows PowerShell prompt.)
TABLE 5-1 Common command-line tools for server monitoring:
CMDLET OR COMMAND-LINE UTILITY DESCRIPTION Export-Counter Exports data that is returned by the and Import-Counter cmdlets Get-Counter Gets performance counter data from local and
remote computers Import-Counter Imports performance counter log files (.blg, .csv, .tsv) and
creates the objects that represent each counter sample in
the log Get-Event Gets events in the Windows PowerShell event queue for the
current session New-Event Creates a new custom event Clear-EventLog Deletes all entries from specified event logs on the local or
remote computers Get-EventLog Manages event logs and displays events contained within
those event logs Enable-VMEventing Enables virtual machine eventing Disable-VMEventing Disables virtual machine eventing Logman.exe Manages and schedules performance counter and
event trace log collections on local and remote systems
Here you can find all kinds of Help Related to Windows Servers.
ISA Server
Files Server
Active Directory
Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows Server 2012
