Best Practices

The following are the best practices from this chapter:

• Have a good backup plan and a tested disaster recovery plan before you need it. Run through the plan and processes regularly.

• When running the Move-CsManagementServer cmdlet, only use the –force switch in a disaster recovery scenario.

• Always run the Move-CsManagementServer cmdlet from the server you want to move the CMS to, not the server you are moving from.

• If you are restoring to the same or identical hardware, perform a bare metal restore using the Windows Recovery Environment.

• Always store your backup files on a separate server. This ensures that a server failure does not take all backup files with it.

• Run the Export-CsConfiguration cmdlet after each configuration change to ensure a good backup is always available.

• It is a best practice to test the restore process in an isolated lab environment from time to time so that administrators are familiar with the process and that the backups are reliable.