Backup Domain controller : Virtual vs Physical

[clintgb01]

Hi Esteemed colleagues

What are your thoughts on the benefits of keeping the backup domain controller on a physical server. Our BDC server hardware has come to the end of life and I have the oppurtunity to either virtualize it or replace it with another physical server.

Is it a best practice to keep the BDC off of  the virtual enviroment so as to still be able to service the domain should anything happen to the SAN?

Many thanks for your input.

Regards

Clint..

[weinstein5]

I would only entire AD environment only if you are running  HA and DRS tthis way you can ensure that the VM hosting the PDC and BDC will not run on the same ESXi hosts and will restart if there is a host failure -

[Gav0]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888794

There are certain restrictions/considerations that apply when running and entirely virtualized AD.

I would suggest reading the above M$ KB on the subject to help you decide

[Gav0]

An interesting article by Scott Lowe on the subject:

http://www.virtualizationadmin.com/blogs/lowe/news/virtualize-all-of-your-domain-controllers-why-not-105.html

[AlexanderGorshu]

Heya,

in addition to previous posts:

Backup via original Windows tools is such a great idea.

But I think that the really good way to backup your DC is to create a second one.

One via virtual environment.

Second via physical.

At leat you can recover one from another.