Monitoring and backing up servers are usually mundane tasks that are easy to be overlooked or forgotten. When everything is running smoothly, you may not even think about whether or not your servers have backed up properly, maybe for weeks at a time. Except in the largest of companies, there usually aren't dedicated "Backup Admins" or "Performance Monitoring Gurus." In IT, we all wear many different hats, and they don't always fit on top of each other.

The key phrase above is "when everything is running smoothly." Unfortunately, this state of bliss cannot continue indefinitely. Hardware fails, malware happens, files are accidentally deleted. Suddenly those dull chores of due diligence, such as monitoring the health of your servers and making sure you have solid backups, jumps from backburner to mission critical on the importance scale.

The good news is that monitoring and backups have never been easier than they are in Windows Server 2012 R2. Let's explore...