Short Version:
Can I use VMRUM to create a "disaster Recovery" backup of a Workstation Pro VM? If so, how?
Long Version:
I help an ophthalmologist with her fancy "cameras", which are used to take pictures of her patient's eyes. Currently, we have two brands of camera, each with their own app. Each camera app runs on a Dell Server running Windows Server. The apps are web based, so the doctor can view the images from any examining room or her office.
The cameras (and app) are fundamental to a patient's care, and there is a need for HIGH availability. She is the only such doctor for a MILES, with patients travelling up to 6 hours to get to her office.
And she is BUSY; "come back tomorrow, the computers are down" is NOT an option, quite aside from the sometimes considerable distances involved.
It's all old and it's time (past time) to upgrade the hardware. And while we have excellent backups of all the data, we don't have a good plan for a RAPID recovery from a hardware failure. Frankly, we bought good gear and have been crossing our fingers every since .. for a very long time in fact.
There is an additional headache; my partner and I who do the support are also about 6 hours away from the office and indeed, 6 hours away from each other. While there's a decently tech-savvy person in the office, most support must be remote.
Our thought for the new scheme is two new server class machines, each running Windows 11 Pro. Each machine will have a copy of Workstation Pro and really nothing else.
Using WSPro, we will spin up a VM to run Windows Server and the server instance will have the camera app installed. We will basically replicate what we have now, just in a VM.
NIGHTLY, though, we want to shut down the VM and copy the VM to the OTHER physical machine, then restart the VM.
Additionally, that same information will get copied offsite, just in case. (Being paranoid doesn't mean there's no one after you.)
The idea is, if the hardware should fail, we could simply fire up the VM just copied. Within a few minutes, we would have a working system that precisely matched the state from the night before.
It would be wonderful if the "backup" could be done via a scheduled task, preferably, a script. (We like old fashioned DOS shell scripts.) And it SEEMS as if VMRUN will do what we need.
Will it? If so, any thoughts as to how best to implement it?
Thanks for any thoughts.