Server 2008 - AD Backup and Restore PM interview

I met up with Stephanie Cheung, the program manager for active directory backup and recovery and we discuss:

• What restartable AD is and when it is appropriate to use it
  • Good for usage when you want to recover deleted objects without rebooting
  • Bad for when you need to do a "bare metal" restore or have database corruption
• Thoughts around when to do a "Dcpromo /forceremoval" versus restoring from backup.  This includes discussion of restoring using install from media (IFM) and IFM for an RODC.
• What the database mounting tool (DMT - old name "snapshot" tool) does and some ideas on what we're going to do to make recovery of deleted objects easier using DMT.
• A best practice around preventing deletion of objects in AD (including the new "Protect object from accidental deletion" checkbox for objects).
• Future thoughts for AD backup and restore, such as reducing forest recovery time
• General disaster recovery tips