Backing up domain controllers is a critical requirement for any environment.
It does not realty matter which virtualizing technology you are using,
Microsoft does support backing up your domain controllers with snapshots.
Restoring an active directory from a snapshot will cause replication to proceed with inappropriate tracking numbers (USN), resulting in an inconsistent database among
domain controller replicas. In most cases, this problem goes undetected by the replication system and no errors are reported, despite inconsistencies between domain controllers.
The supported method that you can use to roll back the contents of active directory is to use an active directory aware backup and restoration utility that uses Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy service APIs.
Microsoft also suggests that in a production environment, you should make system state backups from two different DCs on a daily basis.
Microsoft also suggests that in a production environment, you should make system state backups from two different DCs on a daily basis.
Here are some general best practice guidelines from VMware:
- Avoid snapshots or REDOs for domain controller virtual machines.
- Never attempt to recover an Active Directory database from a backup copy of an old virtual disk.
