[Sunhelp] Restoring a server remotely

[Tim Conrad]

Hello;
The company I work for has around 65 email servers spread across the
country. Every site that has an email server, has a technician, but they
are typically VERY weak. (Got a pulse? Know where the power switch is?
You've got a job!) I'm in the process of using NetBackup to back
everything up across our WAN. The sites typically have a 128k connection
back to our central office. Realistically speaking, each server really
only has one directory to back up, which is the /mailbox directory.
Pretty much everything else can be reconfigured in a matter of an hour
or so.

My question. Does anyone have a simular situation, and what do you do
for disaster recovery? My current idea is to do something like a
bootable CD-ROM for the sites that can be booted from, and then we can
either fix what's wrong or whatever. As a side note, could a cdrom be
built that is bootable, and has an actual ip address, allowing me to
remotely access the machine? Are there any commercial products that
perform this type of task?

To add another level in there. We can't just ship them a 'new server',
and do swapping, because of capital asset issues involved with doing so.

(If it helps any, the servers are either Ultra 2's or Ultra 10's. This
fall, we'll start installing E250's instead. They all have CD-ROM
drives, but no floppy drives. We only route IP on our WAN. They all have
monitors and keyboards attached, except the E250's will not.)

Any input would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks,

Tim Conrad