| O BJECTIVES This chapter helps you to learn and master some of the more common concepts associated with implementing and maintaining availability of servers through such administrative tasks as performance monitoring, log monitoring, and backups . Highly available server solutions, such as clustering and network load balancing, were discussed in Chapter 5, "Planning, Implementing, and Maintaining Highly Available Servers." Microsoft has the following objectives for the routine administrative portion of the "Planning, Implementing, and Maintaining Server Availability" unit: Identify system bottlenecks, including memory, processor, disk, and network- related bottlenecks. -
Examining the inner workings of the operating system can provide an administrator with some valuable insight as to how and when future problems might occur. The System Monitor can provide information that, if used properly, can help avoid costly downtime or performance degradation on servers and client machines. Plan a backup and recovery strategy. -
Identify appropriate backup types. Methods can include the backup types full, incremental, and differential. -
Plan a backup strategy that uses volume shadow copy. -
Plan system recovery that uses Automated System Recovery ( ASR ). O UTLINE Introduction Monitoring System Performance for Bottlenecks The Performance Console Introduction to System Monitor Working with Counters Using System Monitor to Discover Bottlenecks Baselining Servers Creating Baseline Counter Logs Daily Monitoring for Usage System Monitor Tips and Tricks Planning Backup and Recovery Operations New Windows Server 2003 Backup Features Backup Methods and Media Rotation Five-Tape Rotation Grandfather, Father, Son (GFS) Tower of Hanoi Using Windows Backup Creating Backup Job Configurations Scheduling Backup Jobs Performing Restorations Using Windows Backup Using Automated System Recovery Using Volume Shadow Copy Chapter Summary Apply Your Knowledge Exercises Review Questions Exam Questions Answers to Review Questions Answers to Exam Questions Suggested Readings and Resources S TUDY S TRATEGIES -
The key points to understand in this chapter revolve around the various means of disaster prevention and recovery available to you as an administrator. It is important to have a good grasp on ways you can identify and troubleshoot performance issues that affect your computers. -
It is important to understand how the Performance console is set up and what its component parts are. Know how to create a system monitor, create counter and trace logs, and configure alerts. Know specifically the main counters associated with the processor, memory, network, and disk objects as outlined in this chapter. You won't likely be tested specifically on counters, but you should be aware of them anyway. -
As they pertain to data backup and recovery, know how Windows Backup and Restore work, how to invoke them, and how the scheduler works. You also need to have a thorough understanding of Automated System Recovery (ASR) and volume shadow copy. -
Get your hands dirty. The Step by Steps throughout this book provide plenty of directions and exercises, but you should go beyond these examples and create some of your own. If you can, experiment with each of the objectives to see how they work and why you would use each one. |
