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Requirements

Your source server must meet the requirements below. In addition, each target server must meet certain requirements, however, they depend on the type of target server you will be using. See the specific requirements for each migration type for target server requirements. To see details on the migration type best suited for your environment, see Selecting a migration type.

Additionally, verify the machine where you are running the console meets the Double-Take Console requirements , and review the Mirroring and replication capabilities to understand the type of data that Double-Take protects.

• Operating system—The source server can be a physical or virtual server running any of the following operating system editions.

• Windows Server 2003 or 2003 R2 Datacenter, Enterprise (i386, x64), Standard (i386, x64), Web Server, Small Business Server, or Storage Server Edition. Each of the Windows 2003 operating systems require Service Pack 1 or later.

• Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2 Datacenter, Enterprise (i386, x64), Standard (i386, x64), Essential Business Server, Web Server, Foundation Server, Small Business Server (including SBS 2011), or Storage Server Edition

• Windows 2012 Datacenter, Standard, Essentials, or Foundation Edition

• File system—Double-Take supports the NTFS and ReFS file system. FAT and FAT32 are not supported. For detailed information on other file system capabilities, see Mirroring and replication capabilities.

• System memory—The minimum system memory on each server should be 1 GB. The recommended amount for each server is 2 GB.

• Disk space for program files—This is the amount of disk space needed for the Double-Take program files. The amount depends on your operating system version and your architecture (32-bit or 64-bit) and ranges from 350-500 MB.

  The program files can be installed to any volume while the Microsoft Windows Installer files are automatically installed to the operating system boot volume.

  Make sure you have additional disk space for Double-Take queuing, logging, and so on.

   

• Server name—Double-Take includes Unicode file system support, but your server name must still be in ASCII format. If you have the need to use a server's fully-qualified domain name, your server cannot start with a numeric character because that will be interpreted as an IP address. Additionally, all Double-Take servers and appliances must have a unique server name.

  If you rename a server that has already has a Double-Take license applied to it, for example if you rebuild a server, you will have to perform a host-transfer to continue using that license. This includes changing the case (capitalization) of the server name (upper or lower case or any combination of case). See Activating a single Double-Take server for details on completing a host-transfer.

   

• Time—The clock on the source and target servers must be within a few minutes of each other, relative to UTC. Large time skews will cause Double-Take errors.

• Protocols and networking—Your servers must meet the following protocol and networking requirements.

  • Your servers must have TCP/IP with static IP addressing. (Some job types allow you to add DHCP addresses for failover monitoring, although only after a job has already been created. Keep in mind that depending on your failover configuration, a source reboot may or may not cause a failover but having a new address assigned by DHCP may also cause a failover.)
  • By default, Double-Take is configured for IPv6 and IPv4 environments, but the Double-Take service will automatically check the server at service startup and modify the appropriate setting if the server is only configured for IPv4. If you later add IPv6, you will need to manually modify the DefaultProtocol server setting. See Server and job settings for details.

  • For some job types, IPv4 is the only supported version. See the requirements for each job type.

  • IPv6 is only supported for Windows 2008 and 2012 servers.
  • If you are using IPv6 on your servers, your clients must be run from an IPv6 capable machine.
  • In order to properly resolve IPv6 addresses to a hostname, a reverse lookup entry should be made in DNS.

• DNS updates—Some job types allow you to update DNS at failover time. To be able to use DNS updates, your environment must meet the following requirements.

  • The source and target servers must be in the same domain.
  • At cutover time, the target must be able to reach the DNS servers that you want to update.
  • For workgroup environments, both the source and target server must be in the workgroup.
  • Each server's network adapter must have the DNS suffix defined, and the primary DNS suffix must be the same on the source and target. You can set the DNS suffix in the network adapters advanced TCP/IP settings or you can set the DNS suffix on the computer name. See the documentation for your specific operating system for details on configuring the DNS suffix.

  DNS updates are not supported for Server Core servers or NAT environments.

• Microsoft .NET Framework—Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.5 Service Pack 1 is required. This version is not included in the .NET version 4.0 release. Therefore, even if you have .NET version 4.0 installed, you will also need version 3.5.1. For Windows 2008 and earlier, you can install this version from the Double-Take DVD, via a web connection during the Double-Take installation, or from a copy you have obtained manually from the Microsoft web site. For Windows 2008 R2 and later, you need to enable it through Windows features.

• Windows firewall—If you have Windows firewall enabled on your servers, there are two requirements for the Windows firewall configuration.

  • The Double-Take installation program will automatically attempt to configure ports 6320, 6325, and 6326 for Double-Take. If you cancel this step, you will have to configure the ports manually.
  • If you are using the Double-Take Console to push installations out to your servers you will have to open firewall ports for WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation), which uses RPC (Remote Procedure Call). By default, RPC will use ports at random above 1024, and these ports must be open on your firewall. RPC ports can be configured to a specific range by specific registry changes and a reboot. See the Microsoft Knowledge Base article 154596 for instructions. Additionally, you will need to open firewall ports for SMB (server message block) communications which uses ports 135-139 and port 445, and you will need to open File and Printer Sharing. As an alternative, you can disable the Windows firewall temporarily until the push installations are complete.

  See Firewalls for instructions on handling firewalls in your environment.