Recovery Manager for AD Disaster Recovery Edition 10.3 - User Guide

Fault tolerance

Recovery Manager for Active Directory provides the following features that allow the product to continue operating without interruption in case of any failure:

• Switch from the initial Recovery Manager Console to an alternate instance of the console in case of any system failure. For more information, see Full replication.

• Consolidate backup information from multiple backup registration databases on a single Recovery Manager for Active Directory computer. For details, refer Consolidating backup registration data.

• Resume the last forest recovery operation in case it was unexpectedly interrupted. For details, see Resuming an interrupted forest recovery.

Simultaneous system recovery

All domain controllers in your forest or domain can be restored simultaneously from one centralized location, using backups created with Recovery Manager for Active Directory, eliminating the need to manually interface with each domain controller separately saving a significant amount of time and effort.

Support for Windows tools for restoring domain controllers

Recovery Manager for Active Directory can restore selected DCs from backups and then recover the remaining DCs by demoting them and reinstalling Active Directory®. Depending on the Windows version installed on the target DC, Recovery Manager for Active Directory uses either the Active Directory® Installation Wizard (DCPromo.exe) or the Windows PowerShell® cmdlets Install-ADDSDomainController and Uninstall-ADDSDomainController.

Support for the Windows tools allows for a recovery methodology that mirrors the prescriptive guidance laid out the forest recovery method recommended by Microsoft in the Planning for Active Directory® Forest Recovery whitepaper.

Recovery plan

Recovery Plan is designed to improve the overall transparency of the recovery process. The plan is a detailed recovery process roadmap you can generate and view for the current recovery project in the Forest Recovery Console. The plan provides an overview of recovery settings specified for the domain controllers in the recovery project, thus allowing you to gain a better understanding and control of every aspect of the forest or domain recovery.

Generating and reviewing the recovery plan before you proceed with the recovery helps you identify and if necessary avoid any unwanted recovery actions by adjusting the project settings appropriately. You can also print out the generated project recovery plan or export it to a number of presentation formats provided by Microsoft SQL Server® Reporting Services (SSRS) on which the Recovery Plan feature builds, such as PDF, XML, CSV, TIFF, and Excel®.