Our First Class email server runs on a dedicated bladeserver, but we also
have a virtualized clone of it running under XEN on an identical "backup"
bladeserver pool. Robocopy synchronizes the email network store daily
and in the event of a server failure, we simply change the IP address of
the virtual server to that of the failed server, start FCS and the virtual
server takes over until we repair/replace/restore the primary server.
The downside is that new FC updates have to be installed on both the hard
and virtual servers, since the scheduled daily routine only syncs FC data.
We still have a few high utilization servers running on dedicated
hardware, each with its own virtual backup, but one day soon, we will
probably run everything from virtualized server pools.
In the last few years I have learned that virtualized server pools are to
dedicated servers what RAIDs are to hard drives.
Ed Paynter
Manager of Information Systems
Greensboro Day School
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