I'm a junior sys admin at a small firm and i just recently have been assigned to a new customer. I went through the normal learning process of getting to know the relatively simple network structure and the requirements of the company.
I come mostly from a unix background so i don't know all the ins and out of Windows server products. Someone removed web and mail servers from the installation and I now found myself in the need to reinstall IIS and Exchange on this machine and being the careful guy that i am, i'd like to have an exact copy of the machine to use as a test bed.
I already have a Windows 2003 SBS virtualized install but the components present are quite different, and a true clone of the machine would work best to be sure that adding or deleting components won't disrupt it.
It currently serves as AD PDC with roaming profiles and several backup tasks pointing to a nas.
Do you have any idea how can i 1:1 clone the machine without turning it off? Something like Volume Shadow Copy?
I am also worrying i might overthink this. Any simpler solution would also be appreciated.
Best Regards,
GC