Using a stand-by recovery server has the following advantages and disadvantages in comparison to restoring or rebuilding the server:

• Advantages
  • You usually end up with a cleaner, more stable operating system environment with better performance than if you restored a server from full computer backups. When you recover to a stand-by recovery server, the installation of the operating system and other applications is clean, and you reduce the risk of including any instabilities that could affect the performance of your server running Exchange 2000.
  • You can rebuild a stand-by recovery server much faster than you can restore a server or rebuild a server because a stand-by recovery server is instantly ready for you to restore the Windows backup set and dyanamic data backup sets.
  • You can quickly recover from specific types of disasters. For example, recovering from a disaster can be as simple as removing the original drives from the damaged production server and putting them in the stand-by recovery server.
  • You do not have to worry about hardware incompatibilities. The stand-by server recovery strategy ensures that you use hardware that is identical to the hardware on the server you are replacing. Without identical hardware, you will likely experience major conflicts when attempting to restore any backups to that drive (for example, Exchange 2000 database backups).
• Disadvantages
  • You must purchase additional hardware that is used only in the event of a disaster.
  • You could still experience hardware or software compatibility problems after restoring the Windows 2000 System State data from the original production server. For example, there may be a difference in hardware that escapes your notice (such as the same model video card that, for some reason, uses a chipset with a different revision than the card in the original server).

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Standard Edition
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, Premium Edition
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, Standard Edition
• Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server