Backups: Suggestions

[TechieSooner]

I'm mainly worried about natural disasters (fire).

This is a SMB- only got two servers at this point. Looking at bringing on a few more- so backup tasks get more complicated.
Server room is not fireproof, unfortunately.

Current way it is done: daily backups, and moved to big fireproof safe each night.
Works great for 2 servers.
Having 4-5 servers will be getting a PITA to swap all these out each day.

I've got (or will be getting shortly) a T1. Backing up 4 or 5 servers each night to an offsite location isn't fast enough.
Backing up to local SAN does not protect me against fire.


Ideas? Best solution I've thought of- is back everything up to single hard drives weekly and move to safe, and doing incremental updates nightly offsite.

[MorfiusX]

You need more than a backup plan, you need a disaster recover (DR) plan, of which backups should be included.

I use Bacula as most of my servers are Linux (CentOS to be specific). I run a single physical server that hosts three virtual servers, plus to host virtual servers. I have configured it to perform nightly backups to a local hard drive, then weekly backups get take off site. There many different rotation schemes you could use, but this will depend on you DR requirements.

Most of my customers use a mix of Yosemite backup and BackupExec. Both get the job done as they are supposed to. Yosemite is a little cheaper.

[QHalo]

How much data are you talking about? Backing up to an offsite location isn't fast enough sounds like you have quite a bit of data. Would that be a correct assumption?

Whether your plan is to recover from a fire, earthquake, or any other unforseeable disaster; having offsite tapes is an absolute must. Keeping a local copy onsite is fine, but having a storage facility keep another copy is IMHO essential.

As the above poster suggested, backing the local data to another storage device, and then off to tape, and then offsite sounds like that should be enough to keep you running. Then you have to think about recovery hardware and so forth. Any new hardware that comes in the door should already be included in the DR plan and how it will integrate and how you will recover it should the unthinkable happen should take place well before you even think about putting it into production. I've always tried to stress that to the people I work for. Who generally just want it in and working for them and could careless about disasters.

Edit: +1 for Backupexec as well. It's fairly easy to implement even with a few servers, and scales well for growth. Slap a tape drive in and set the rotation up. You basically just put a tape in and let it do it's thing after it's setup.

[dandragonrage]

Yes, we need information about how much data. A T1 line is very slow these days for all but small amounts of data. I would look into business DSL or fiberoptic service like FIOS or maybe even business cable modem if cable is good in your area. All of the major companies and most of the smaller ones offer business services for those with static IPs and often faster speeds than they make available to consumers, though DSL is still limited by the distance and quality of your telephone line.

Also, what kind of backup medium are you currently using? Tape? If so, do you cycle tapes or just use them and store them for good? My work is using only tapes and we have a one week cycle (way too short to be safe) and recently we lost a server (which had RAID-5 but 2 disks failed in a very short period) and we found out that our backup tapes weren't in good enough condition to get all of our data back. Very bad! I highly recommend at least a 2-tier backup where you have a SAN AND you back up to tape (you can get tapes that are over 1TB uncompressed but the drives are very expensive) and then you can store the tapes off-site if you like. Iron Mountain is a well-known company for that kind of thing but I don't know how their prices are or anything, but there are probably other competitors for that.

If you do cycle your tapes, I would say 1 month is the minimum cycle, and be sure to check the quality of the tapes. You'll probably want to replace them yearly or so. The longer your cycle, the less often you'll have to replace them, generally.

[TechieSooner]

I have configured it to perform nightly backups to a local hard drive, then weekly backups get take off site.
Doesn't protect me against fire though- other than once a week.
This still has me going to tape-swapping situation again though- for 5 servers not the best.

How much data are you talking about? Backing up to an offsite location isn't fast enough sounds like you have quite a bit of data. Would that be a correct assumption?
Yep. I'm looking down the road a few years though, as I don't want to do what the prior folks had done- and a year later I'm in this pinch trying to get a new plan together.

Total diskspace in all is probably at 1TB right now (one minicomputer, exchange, image server, and then all my file storage), in the future might be 2TB or more.

I would look into business DSL or fiberoptic service like FIOS or maybe even business cable modem if cable is good in your area.
Business DSL is what I've got now: top of the line, faster download speed but the upload speed is not as fast as a T1, and there are no guarantees on uptime that I get with a T1.

No fiber here, either.

Same problem with cable- the upload is not so great, and they don't guarantee me uptime.


Also, what kind of backup medium are you currently using? Tape? If so, do you cycle tapes or just use them and store them for good?
On one server (propriety one) I use tapes, cycle every 2 weeks.

On the Windows box I've got external HDD and TrueImage that gets me sector for sector image of the drive every night- I like this very much. TrueImage also support incremental.

Tapes are also limited by space, I can buy lots of HDDs for the price of auto-changing tape equipment.

Also our data is so obsolete by the end of a week- keeping past that isn't really needed.

[MorfiusX]

Doesn't protect me against fire though- other than once a week.
This still has me going to tape-swapping situation again though- for 5 servers not the best.


If a catastrophic event, like a fire, where to occur, some data loss is typically acceptable as it going to take you quite some time to recover non-IT items in the company. To have a requirement of zero data loss is extremely expensive. One company spent over $10m on this and still hadn't achieved true zero loss capabilities. Even with daily backups being taken off site (or transferred via the internet), you will still have some data loss to recover to your last backup point. The less data loss you require, the more expensive your DR plan will be.

I don't switch multiple tapes. I have one system designated as the "Backup Server". It has the local (hard disk) storage as well as a single RDX drive. My weekly backups ALL will fit on a single RDX cartridge. Backups of servers to media are done over the network.

Also, I wasn't suggesting that what I do for DR will work for you. I was just trying to get you thinking about you requirements and provide an example of how some one else does it. My DR plan meets my needs, but that doesn't mean it will meet your needs. This is why I suggested thinking about DR plan, which should be comprehensive.

[TechieSooner]

If a catastrophic event, like a fire, where to occur, some data loss is typically acceptable as it going to take you quite some time to recover non-IT items in the company.

A day is acceptable to me... A week is not.

IMO the only way to get 100% protection is mirroring or clustering- which I have seen gone wrong WAYYY to many times, and we are not big enough for that yet... As it requires so much monitoring and checking on it to make sure things are working smoothly.


I guess that'd be a good idea. Backup everything to a "backup server", then back that up each night and move to safe like I've been doing.
What equipment do you suggest? Ideally it would run *nix, cheapest... What would you do for tapes though? I'd like at least 2TB to future proof myself for awhile, though if I buy 1TB external hard drives those would work for awhile as well.

[Keiichi]

Do you have a dedicated backup server or do you have a copy of the backup software running on each machine?

If it's the former I would highly suggest getting a backup server so you can start consolidating all the backup tasks to one machine. Then all you need to do is to install the agent onto the machines that you want to protect. Makes administration a lot easier.

I would also take a look at how much new data gets recorded into your nightly backups, that will help determine what you will need in terms of bandwidth for an offsite solution.

I believe best practices for having tape archives is that you want to make sure you can be able to read tapes from 2 generations behind what current is. Current being LTO4. Basically whenever a new generation comes out you would want to transfer any long term data to that.

[TechieSooner]

If it's the former I would highly suggest getting a backup server so you can start consolidating all the backup tasks to one machine. Then all you need to do is to install the agent onto the machines that you want to protect. Makes administration a lot easier.
That'd be my plan... Just one server right now, it's all the same.


I would also take a look at how much new data gets recorded into your nightly backups, that will help determine what you will need in terms of bandwidth for an offsite solution.
Well now I do a 100% of the whole server each night- totals about 90GB- but that's compressed.

[MorfiusX]

To go into a little more detail about my setup (as an example):

My "Backup Server" runs CentOS 5.2 using Bacula backup software, all of which is free. I have a local 1TB drive that I use for daily incremental backups and the OS. I use a Tandberg RDX Quickstore for my off site drive which is essentially a cartridge based removable hard disk solution.

Each server, including the Windows Server, has a Bacula client installed. Bacula has a client for pretty much every OS available. Bacula will performs a nightly incremental backup to local storage. Once a week, the RDX is used for a full backup to media that is taken off site.

The nice thing about Bacula is that it is modular. Each component does not require being on the same machine, the includes storage devices. Bacula can easily backup to a tape drive or file storage on another system. That system can be on the local network, or off site.

If you want *Nix compatible backup solution, there are plenty of free open-source solutions. Bacula happens to be my favorite as it work similar to other enterprise commercial systems that I have used (AKA Tivoli). It take a little bit of time to figure out how the pieces work together, but once you do, it can adapt to pretty much any DR plan you can think off.

The Tandberg drives are good for smaller installations. Their largest cartridge is a 500/1000gb cart. LTO4 will hold more, but at considerably more cost.

Here are some links:
http://www.bacula.org/en/
http://www.tandbergdata.com/us/en/products/search-result/?action=2&ref=54

As a note, one way to do 100% protection is with SAN replication. That is the project I was refering to when mentioning the former employer. But as mentioned, this was a very expensive project. However, this company does over $1B a year in business.

[Keiichi]

Well now I do a 100% of the whole server each night- totals about 90GB- but that's compressed.
So you got about 180GB of worth of changes every night?

[marley1]

thats great that you have 90gigs of data on each server, but what changed every nite? you need to get the data offsite.

i have clients with 70 gigs on one server, and 40 on the other, and we still have them on Mozy online. Takes a few days to backup up the initial set, but they dont change a huge ammount of data so each nite is incrememntal.

[TechieSooner]

<snip>
Looks about $400 (http://www.provantage.com/tandberg-8541-rdx~7TANM00U.htm)for 500GB...
What if I get above 500GB?

FWIW... Newegg external 500GB drives are $90 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148235).

Ideally, I don't want to mess with offsite backup over the internet: want to keep it local.
Leaning toward backing up to a cheap *nix box with big HDDs- and then backing that up to some sort of external media I can rotate out of safe every day... And the only thing I know that's big enough are like 1TB drives, correct?

Ideally if this was a fireproof room, I just stick a SAN in there and forget about it.

So you got about 180GB of worth of changes every night?
No idea on changes- I've been running fulls each night, no idea what an incremental would be.
Not much I'd think, mainly just user files and Exchange, as imaging files are pretty much just archived and never changed.

[marley1]

i can get you great price on the rd1000 with the 500gb tapes =)

much cheaper then that $400 buck deal =p

[TechieSooner]

i can get you great price on the rd1000 with the 500gb tapes =)

much cheaper then that $400 buck deal =p

How so?

But main question is what do you do if you outgrow 500GB on my weekly fulls?

[marley1]

how so - im a dell reseller =)

dont waste my time though, ive made tons of estimate for people here all them to go a different route.

but i can save you money on the drive and tapes, more tapes = more discount.

[Keiichi]

No idea on changes- I've been running fulls each night, no idea what an incremental would be.
Not much I'd think, mainly just user files and Exchange, as imaging files are pretty much just archived and never changed.

It would probably be a lot less. You mentioned that you used Trueimage, read up on how to setup incremental snapshot backups. It will take up a bit more space but it will decrease your backup windows enough so that you can make use of a T1 for offsite backup.

[Jgedeon]

2 BackupPC Servers one in house and one offsite. Offsite BackupPC Server backs up the internal BackupPC

[Captain Colonoscopy]

you might take a look at leapfrog, sounds like it might fit the bill for your needs. it consist of a local backup server that does either nightly or continuous backups from multiple servers or desktops. then it automatically uploads the backed up data to the company's data center during off-hours. Once the first backup is completed it only uploads files that have changed but you still have the option of keeping multiple copies of the backups on the local appliance. you get the security of off-site backups without the hassle AND you can restore from the local server without having to go download all your junk.

[p3n]

I work in a school, our 'curriculum' (no finance stuff) servers (3 Win 2003 DCs, 1 Webserver, 1 Xserve) backup to a variety of locations. The webserver (CentOS) is setup to rsync to the first DC which backs up to an AIT tape. DC 2&3 backup to a HDD cartridge drive, all 3 use ntbackup scripts along with a 10 tape/disk rotation (mon-thurs,friday1,2,3,month1,2,3).

The tapes are stored on the other side of the building, with one offsite. In this same location is a NAS which the Xserve rsyncs to nightly and weekly - if a fire got all the servers and the on-site backups we have bigger problems than our data :)

[TechieSooner]

you might take a look at leapfrog, sounds like it might fit the bill for your needs. it consist of a local backup server that does either nightly or continuous backups from multiple servers or desktops. then it automatically uploads the backed up data to the company's data center during off-hours. Once the first backup is completed it only uploads files that have changed but you still have the option of keeping multiple copies of the backups on the local appliance. you get the security of off-site backups without the hassle AND you can restore from the local server without having to go download all your junk.

This sounds good....

Is this the place? http://www.ribbit.net/backup-solutions.html

[Captain Colonoscopy]

yep, that's the one. :D

[Captain Colonoscopy]

actually, I'm not sure that's the one. That looks like an Atlanta based company that does all kinds of IT shit. The leapfrog I remember was an appliance or server and hosted on-line backup. Let me do some digging and see what I can find. Perhaps the company has expanded or something . . . . or maybe I am remembering the name of the product wrong.....

[Captain Colonoscopy]

Okay, my bad. Here is what you need to look at: http://www.bitleap.com/leapserv/

I knew there was a frog and leap involved somewhere in the name of the company and their product. The company is BitLeap and their product is the LeapServ. Sorry for the confusion.




What’s so special about the BitLeap LeapServ?

* 24/7 Support & Manangement (we don’t sleep much)
* Your data is backed up locally on your network
* Your data is transferred securely to two offsite backup locations
* Detailed Backup Reports (via email & online control panel)
* Class-leading compression, encryption & security (better safe than sorry)
* Bulk data restoration from either local or offsite backups
* Use tools like FTP, FTPS, WebDAV or our custom Windows Restore Tool to connect to and restore your data

[pfunkman]

I guess i dont see why you couldnt grab a $400 2TB external drive from newegg and copy the backup from your server nightly and throw it in a safe? Drive would only be unprotected for the duration of the file transfer then it owuld be safe and sound.

Not the prettiest solution but would likely save tons in the long run.

[marley1]

leap frog looks expensive, pretty much its a second file server on network running sync toy to copy data from main server to backup server then is uploaded online.

cost wise its expesnive. 100gb is 1grand to start and 125 a month.

mozy pro would cost a reseller lot less, would cost a consumer still less 107/month about.

mozy enterprise may be good too.

so if you do have 200gb now, it would be 207/month which is like 2500/year. so compare to a tape setup, LTO3 and tapes would be comparable, or RD1000 and tapes depending on what you want (i use LTO3 for my bigger clients). figure in some type of backup software and your probably close to 4 grand maybe more depending on how many tapes you get. if you get the rd1000 u dont have towrry bout tapes, ifyou get LTO3 you need new tapes every other year.

now thats not even offsite, so you gotta work on some kind of service, or pay for one of those data pickup services.

look into a online type service. the first backup is slow,service like mozy allows you to send them a hard drive with the intial data (usb or whatnot), then you only have to sync changes.

if you are interested let me know, ill give you great price. i think if before end of September i can save you 10%

let me know :)

[Captain Colonoscopy]

the nice thing about bitleap is THEY manage the backup and test restores as part of that monthly fee. You also don't have to download your data to restore like with mozy or iDrive, unless there is a catastrophe. It can also do message level backups of exchange. Sure, it's expensive but there are no tapes or drives to manage.

Not trying to say it's the best solution in the world but it definitely should be something to consider, especially if you don't have the time/interest in implementing a traditional backup solution.

[TechieSooner]

The company I work for likes having control of everything... So a service like that won't work.


Thinking best option right now is a barebones (with lots of space) backup server- and then back that server up every day to external drives.

[Captain Colonoscopy]

The company I work for likes having control of everything... So a service like that won't work.


Thinking best option right now is a barebones (with lots of space) backup server- and then back that server up every day to external drives.

Please tell me you are looking at the Tandberg RDX drives at least? Those are a lot more rugged than your typical USB hard-drive. Not to mention a bit when you use the internal SATA connection. I, personally, wouldn't feel comfortable relying on USB HDDs for any data I was responsible for.

That's just my two cents. ;)

[TechieSooner]

Please tell me you are looking at the Tandberg RDX drives at least? Those are a lot more rugged than your typical USB hard-drive. Not to mention a bit when you use the internal SATA connection. I, personally, wouldn't feel comfortable relying on USB HDDs for any data I was responsible for.

That's just my two cents. ;)

Only problem is I'd need more than 500GBs.

[Keiichi]

btw Retrospect, what I use, also comes with integrated Mozy support.

[The Spyder]

The company I work for likes having control of everything... So a service like that won't work.


Thinking best option right now is a barebones (with lots of space) backup server- and then back that server up every day to external drives.

Started to do the same thing at work this week.

Dell PE600SC with 2x 1tb in raid 1, gigabit network, and a pair of 750gig esata externals switched out every other day.

[The Spyder]

Please tell me you are looking at the Tandberg RDX drives at least? Those are a lot more rugged than your typical USB hard-drive. Not to mention a bit when you use the internal SATA connection. I, personally, wouldn't feel comfortable relying on USB HDDs for any data I was responsible for.

That's just my two cents. ;)

http://www.overstock.com/Electronics/Tandberg-RDX-Quickstor-Hard-Drive/2631152/product.html