hello,
I do have a question about restoring an DC testwise to make sure I would be prepared in case of a real disaster:
We have
1. in our main office a Windows 2008R2 Server with an Active Directory and an Oracle database
2. also in the main office an Exchange 2010 server
3. in a branch office that is connected by VPN another 2008 R2 server with AD to enable user logons in case of a network interruption.
All machines are backed up using Windows' own backup tool.
I wanted to test a recovery of the main office's DC onto an unused hardware which is not connected to the network. The restore itself went smooth, the server boots up but takes very long to log me on. After that I can hardly do anything because - that's how explain it for myself - it waits for the initial replication to the second DC to get up-to-date information? Of course I can not do that because this machine is just an additional copy that should not exist.
If my assumptions are correct I would say that one of my goals is already achieved and the AD would recover after the replication in case it was a real restore?
How could I get the recovered test server to ignore replication and just start working with an old AD? I would like to connect to the Oracle database simply to see everything is there and the ERP system works, but I cant because is seems my DNS resolution isn't working correctly. I guess because it is AD integrated. (This is what I assume because of various error- or warning messages. Please tell me if you think I'm wrong.)
To recover the second (branch office) DC I dont have the required hardware and I guess it wouldn't help anyway because then I have two machines waiting for a replication that never happens?
Thank's in advance for any suggestions,
kind regards, Markus