2 Mini Servers, Static IP, Sync?

[Akitakoi]

Our small business is thinking about chucking our old 2003 Exchange server for a Mac Mini server and the boss has a few questions. Your help is appreciated.

1. If we buy 2 Mini Servers, have one set up at the office and another offsite to serve as a backup, can we set them up to "sync"?

2.Does the offsite unit need to have a static IP?

3. We have 3 fairly recent Macs at the office, a couple Mac laptops and a couple windows laptops. What email program can we use on the windows machines? Outlook?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Les Kern]

Our small business is thinking about chucking our old 2003 Exchange server for a Mac Mini server and the boss has a few questions. Your help is appreciated.

1. If we buy 2 Mini Servers, have one set up at the office and another offsite to serve as a backup, can we set them up to "sync"?

2.Does the offsite unit need to have a static IP?

3. We have 3 fairly recent Macs at the office, a couple Mac laptops and a couple windows laptops. What email program can we use on the windows machines? Outlook?

Thanks for your help.

Here is one way to do it. I use this method for SOME casual backups, and I am sure others will chime in with theirs.
No static IP is needed, however, your router at the outside location will need to forward AFP to the Mini's NAT address. Simple to set up.

On the production Mini, set it up to mount the AFP share on the desktop, and once mounted, set it to auto mount on reboot.
Download Carbon Copy Cloner (bombich.com, payment requested, Mac user "must have" software) and start it up on the Mini. Set your source as "some items" (like pic). Once you have set up what you want synced, select Scheduler and set a time to run the cron job. You can have multiple events, and copies while server is live.
Very easy to set up, painless, robust RSync protocol. It has never failed me.

 

[belvdr]

You better thoroughly think this out, and I'd advise you to get ideas from a few consulting firms.

For example, can you backup and restore an individual mailbox with your current backup scheme? How much downtime can your business afford? Do you have enough expertise to keep this system running (or can you find expertise)? What's the growth pattern for your user data? Are you currently managing the clients at all? Do you need to manage them? Are you only transferring mail capabilities?

I'm not sure if CCC would handle OS X Server correctly. I've never had to do a restore of OS X Server with it.