I love to tinker, and I love technology. However, time and resource limits dictate that I get something that works with minimal investment. Thus, I have unfortunately not had time to play with virtualization since it has become popular.
My thought on cloning SBS to a backup server was that I did not have to set up all the services and keep data synced (Exchange Server, users, etc). I guess the intermediate solution is to just get any old computer to serve up AC if the main server goes down, copying daily backups of AC across the network. I can then restore the entire SBS at leisure to an identical server. That would really be still a daily process, with some data loss and not real time. If I then work in the backup AC, I would have to re-restore AC to the real server when it is up, making any data loss permanent.
I have tried database synchronization programs in the past, such as dbconvert, but never got it working right. Even on an hourly schedule, it would tie up AC database for minutes at a time.
If any IT genius on the board can work out a real-time switch-over AC backup scheme with no data loss, I am sure many would pay for it.
