Automatic file backup from offsite storage

My company needs a solution to a problem and I don’t have the server expertise to come up with an exact solution but maybe someone here already has figured this one out. We currently have over a hundred job sites throughout the company working on projects. We currently run everything off Citrix for our outlook access, word processing, timberline and ect. Many of us are tired of using Citrix and have convinced the company we can do business without it but need a solution to some things.

We have a lot of files that only the individual projects require at any one time so the process of having to log onto Citrix to retrieve these files is tedious and slow depending on the file size which can be large. The more tech savvy projects have gone to project NAS and server setups. The problem with these are they do not automatically perform backup to the companies servers. We usually deploy 2-20 computers and tablets on the job sites depending on size of the project that will need access to files on the onsite server. Is there an easy to set up, think non-technical people but can make a phone call and follow directions well, server or NAS system that could be deployed at these job sites that will automatically backup to the companies servers every few days or so? Projects take anywhere from 6 months to 4 years or more so the solution needs to be able to take apart and reinstalled on a new project without too much headache. I have a “not so helpful” IT team to deal with because they always seem to know best instead of listening to the issues so whatever the solution I need to be able to tell them all the components for a turnkey solution. Thanks for the help.

Anyone?

We use http://owncloud.org/ at our office, its not super hard to setup if you follow the instructions and read them first.

I would also suggest Google Apps for Business if you are non-technical.

The above would be a simple way of just sharing and saving documents, not on to machines.

If you want to backup every machine individually I would check out CrashPlan Pro E or something from CrashPlan as its very inexpensive, if you choose Pro E you can buy the software and host the backup server yourself so all of your devices will backup to your own server in-house.

icrosoft server software 2008 and newer replicate files. Its called DFS replication. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771058.aspx
So get a remote server. Put it in where your going. VPN the networks together and when the user logs into the server to access or change the files the DFS does the work. And it will be fast because the files with be on the local server.

Synology nas boxes do this also. I haven't tried them so I cant tell you how well it works.
www.synology.com/en-us/support/tutorials/461

Or if you really want to dumb it down, use dropbox with selective sync.

jkerr2 said:

icrosoft server software 2008 and newer replicate files. Its called DFS replication. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771058.aspx
So get a remote server. Put it in where your going. VPN the networks together and when the user logs into the server to access or change the files the DFS does the work. And it will be fast because the files with be on the local server.

Synology nas boxes do this also. I haven't tried them so I cant tell you how well it works.
www.synology.com/en-us/support/tutorials/461

Click to expand...

This is exactly what Im looking for. Thanks for the info!

Check out rsync. That's how I do all my backups. Basically I usually just setup a generic source/destination script then call it from cron jobs. Eventually I'd like to code something more intuitive though with a web interface and stuff.