Recovery Manager for AD Disaster Recovery Edition 10.0.1 - User Guide

Managing automatic pauses

In a recovery project, you can create multiple automatic pauses, each having different settings. You can also modify the settings of existing automatic pauses or delete automatic pauses as necessary. To manage automatic pauses, click the Configure Pauses button on the Forest Recovery Console toolbar.

For each automatic pause, you can define the domain controllers to which the pause will apply and specify a recovery stage before which you want to activate the automatic pause on the domain controllers. The automatic pause becomes active when at least one domain controller specified in the pause settings reaches the recovery stage you specified.

You can configure an automatic pause to become active before one of the following recovery stages described in the next table.

Table 29: Recovery stages for which you can use automatic pauses

In this section:

• Creating an automatic pause
• Releasing an automatic pause
• Modifying an automatic pause
• Deleting an automatic pause

Creating an automatic pause

To create an automatic pause

1. Create or open a recovery project.
2. On the toolbar, click Configure Pauses.
3. In the dialog box that opens, click Create Pause.
4. Under Pause properties, do the following:
   1. Use the Pause name box to type a descriptive name for the automatic pause.
   2. Use the Activate pause before the specified stage list to select a recovery stage.
   3. Under the Use this pause for domain controllers list, click Add, and then select the check boxes next to the domain controllers to which you want to apply this pause. When you are finished, click OK.
5. Click OK to apply your settings.

Releasing an automatic pause

After you start the recovery of your project or run the verify settings operation on the project, you can monitor active pauses in the project and release active pauses as necessary. After you release an active automatic pause, all paused domain controllers to which the pause applies resume their recovery.

You can view the number of active pauses next to the Active pauses link in the Project Summary area of the Forest Recovery Console. You can click the Active pauses link to view the details of and selectively release active automatic pauses.

To release an active automatic pause

1. In the Project Summary area of the Forest Recovery Console, click the Active pauses link.
2. Use the Active pauses list to select the pause you want to release.

After you select a pause, you can view a list of domain controllers to which the pause applies and current pause status for each of these domain controllers.

3. Click the Release button to resume the recovery of the paused domain controllers to which the pause applies.

Modifying an automatic pause

For each automatic pause, you can modify such settings as the pause name, the recovery stage before which the pause activates, and the list of domain controllers to which the pause applies.

To modify an automatic pause

1. Open the recovery project that includes the automatic pause you want to modify.
2. On the toolbar, click Configure Pauses.
3. Use the Pauses list to select the automatic pause you want to modify.
4. Under Pause properties, modify the pause settings as necessary.
5. When you are finished, click OK to apply your changes.

Deleting an automatic pause

To delete an automatic pause

1. Open the recovery project that includes the automatic pause you want to delete.
2. On the toolbar, click Configure Pauses.
3. Use the Pauses list to select the automatic pause you want to delete.
4. Click the Remove button. If prompted, confirm the deletion of the pause.
5. When you are finished, click OK to apply your changes.

Copying a backup file to a new location

You can copy a backup file registered with Recovery Manager for Active Directory Disaster Recovery Edition to a new location. This may be required to meet a specific corporate policy or to provide a faster access to the file. After you copy the file, you will need to update the recovery project settings to redirect Recovery Manager for Active Directory Disaster Recovery Edition to the new location of the file.

To copy a backup to a new location

1. Copy the backup file to a new location.
2. Start the Forest Recovery Console.
3. Open the recovery project in which you want to use the backup file in its new location.
4. Use the List of Domain Controllers area to select the domain controller you plan to restore from the copied backup file.
5. Open the Settings tab, and then do the following:
   1. Specify the Restore from backup method for the domain controller.
   2. Clear the Use backup criteria to automatically select a backup file check box.
   3. Click the Select button, and then use the provided list to select the backup file you copied. When finished, click OK.
   4. In the Backup file text box, edit the backup file path to specify the new location of the file.
6. Click the Verify Settings button to verify the changes you have made.

Install Active Directory from Media recovery method

The Install Active Directory from Media recovery method promotes the selected servers to Domain Controllers using the Install from Media (IFM) option. This option lets you restore System State of a domain controller using a media file created from System State Backup. This recovery method can be applied only to servers with pre-installed operating system.

The target server should be compliant with the following requirements:

• Operating system version should be equal to the original DC operating system.
• Operating system should follow organization security best practices (e.g. have latest updates, security software) since this operating system will be used to run the Active Directory Domain services after the restore.
• The physical disks should have enough free space to host the Active Directory data after recovery.

For more details about recovery settings, see Settings tab.

Install Active Directory recovery method

The Install Active Directory recovery method is used to install Active Directory on a clean machine. For domain controllers running Windows Server 2008 or earlier, this option uses the Dcpromo.exe tool. For Windows Server 2012-based domain controllers, this option uses the native Windows PowerShell cmdlets Install- ADDSDomainController.

For more details about recovery settings, see Settings tab.