I have several machines which are on a small network with one DC and 3 to 5 workstations on the network at any given time. These are all setup with DNS and AD on the same server. I want the ability to automate a backup, re-image, and restore of data for any of the workstations. I have each of the workstations on my network backed up to the server (user settings, files, etc. - not a full image) each night. I then backup the server every night (differential backup) and take an external backup drive off-site once a week. When the data goes off-site, the backup drive that gets swapped in gets a new full backup, and then differential for each additional backup until the week is up.
I have a few requirements here:
First, I want to be able to run an easy automated backup routine, but don't know the best way to do this. Currently I am using ntbackup to backup to a network share on the sever for each machine's daily backup, which then gets backed-up on the server to an external drive nightly. The external drive is then taken off-site weekly. This should protect my data from a workstation or server crash each day, and a theft of workstation or server (or fire, etc.) weekly. This is acceptable to me for the risk of data loss of a day or so (up to a week worth of data in the event of a catastrophic problem such as theft or fire.)
Second, I want to have some automated way of doing a workstation recovery. I'd like it to be a one button recovery type of situation. In the worst case scenario, I would take the last days recovery data to do the recovery. Ideally, I would have the ability to log off the user that is on the workstation (if any) and start a backup of user data (documents, settings, desktop, etc.) After the backup is complete, I'd like to be able to start a remote bare-metal (no user interaction) restore to a base image. Then once complete, I'd like to have the workstation (if not already done so in the image) be joined to the domain and the workstation data re-populated.
The above mentioned equipment is:
- Server 2003 Small Business Edition R2
- Workstations - XP pro and Vista (no Windows 7 yet)
Is there a good one click backup, re-image, restore solution out there? What are other people using?
Thanks for any advice you can provide.