MCSE 70-293 Exam Prep: Planning and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure (2nd Edition)

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.

• Identify system bottlenecks by using System Monitor.

• 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 ).

• Regardless of how much planning and effort you put into keeping your servers running smoothly, disaster may still strike. Being familiar with the use and options of the Windows Backup Utility is a critical part of a disaster recovery plan in Windows Server 2003.

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.