Hi Guys,
I worked for a company as the IT person for about 10 years. I became Ill and was forced to stop working. During that time when the company got into some problems they would ask me to help them out. if i could take care of it from home, i would.. if i couldn't then i would wait for a day i felt well enough to go there and take care of it.
they had the biz server go down, (and i was not so good). i advised them to call the IBM tech and ask him to help them out. they advised me that the server had the "Mobo" die and the cost was more than they could afford. I advised them to look on eBay for a replacement and then see if they could get the IBM tech to migrate the system over to the new server. (OS is AIX UNIX)
It all worked out, but they were down for 7 working days. the cost was much more than they though it would be. they do understand how bad it was to be off line for a week.
that being said, it has been about more than a year since that happened. Less than a year ago 2 of my friends (at work) bought the biz from the old owners, before they went "under".
one of my friends, now being concerned about the eBay server going down,and me not back to work yet, has asked me to find out if he can clone the server. this way if the (eBay) server dies like the last one, we can just go right on to the clone and keep on working. or at least minimal down time.
My thoughts, do we really need to setup hardware identical to the server they have now?
would it be cheaper to get a small server and put a clone on a "Virtual" server? should we look at something like Acronis? How do you copy the OS and Biz software and also update the biz software on the second server? the server now backs up the Biz stuff every night on tape. could it be done to the second server. do they have a "cloud" backup that will backup all? (the OS and the Biz Software)
I am kind of "lost", (no doubt out of the biz to long) got any ideas?? (i hope)
thanks..
inetbogey.
P.S. my friends are unable to spend a lot of money.