LVM snapshot dump Xen
 

i'm currently looking for a good Back-Up strategy and would love to get some help.

the last several years I've been learning and using Linux, but having a perfect back-up strategy seems to be the hardest struggle to me, also since the fact i never actually needed it ;) but nevertheless its a good thing to have.

i do the server in my working place so more an enthusiast then a real techie, till so far i initially set up a samba server and use tar to make the back-up, but lately we started to get the need for a mail server so instead of buying an extra machine i decided to use Xen to host the file server and the mail server on LVM, this works pretty well so quite happy with it.

but....since the server needs a replacement any way and i want to host more services with Xen i feel the need for a better solution. below is what i want to set up.

Xen instances on LVM
1 mail/web server
2 LTSP server
3 hylafax server
4 ???? maybe more will be needed in the future

now, till so far the best solution (i think) is to use LVM snapshot and then DUMP to a removable usb hard drive that my boss can take home every week returning the old one.

And here's the LinuxQuestion
some day this server will crash and all my data will be on the removable usb drive and i will need to put it back somewhere and i was thinking to keep my old server for this purpose.

i would create a similar dom0 on the old server on forehand and then simply copy the data (domU's) from the removable drive to the right place, switch the network cables and start the domU's and live happily ever after till i have ordered a shiny new server and repeat the whole process.

and then my main question is whether the domU's will accept the change in hardware since the two servers are not the exact same identical brand etc....


is this possible?