Backup solution - ~500GB data across 4 servers

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bobdole369

Gawd
Joined
Jun 27, 2004
Messages
856
Hi all,

I'm implementing a backup regimen that works better than whats been in place for a couple years now (that is the boss runs "second copy" on a PC with some external drives, and occasionally ships them offsite to another employee for safekeeping).

We have 300GB of data that isn't particularly critical, (installs, media, music, pictures) - 50GB that would really stink if we lost it and is unrecoverable (original GA drawings, our autocad - as built drawings) - and 10GB of totally critical stuff, including a MS SQL database that supports Sharepoint and MS CRM.

Boss is dead set against tape - wants a hard drive based solution. He ignored my recommendations to use rsync locally and ship it offsite, instead put a machine offsite and dedicated 2 DSL lines to to the backups. This is despite my warnings about only 512k upload speed taking an entire day to transfer only 3-5GB. Plus he wants voip, vpn, ftp, and www access through those dsl lines.

That plan failed - mostly because despite having cbwfq/llc on the cisco running the 2 dsl lines - the ftp wiped out bandwidth from the other services, and didn't account for open files. FTP sync setting failed and cancelled when encountering an open file - and it did not back up the sql DB at all.

Any thoughts on a software program to do this? I'm against Acronis - as it seems it would choke on open files too. Someone prove me wrong?
 
Tell your boss that it can't be done.

Because it can't be done in his parameters, period. You won't get the budget for TSM, and TSM requires tape. Acronis can't handle SharePoint - in fact, you absolutely require TSM, AvePoint or NetBackup 6.5 to support SharePoint 2005 and later - you have to use the SharePoint APIs to perform the complete backup, or restores will not work.

In other words, unless your boss resolves his rectal cranial inversion, your data is at substantial risk.
 
in my experience acronis does shadow copy so it should work with open files..
 
Doesn't matter. You can't get a valid, usable SharePoint backup. First off, MS SQL must be either shut down or placed into Backup mode. Secondly, this has to be done prior to and during the SharePoint file backup. Then there's several additional metadata pieces relating to revisions and security within SharePoint that also must be backed up, at the same time. And it all has to be in the same set, at the same point in time. Otherwise, the backup is invalid, and you'll have none of your revision or security data.
 
Glad to see another person who knows SharePoint :)
 
We have 300GB of data that isn't particularly critical, (installs, media, music, pictures) - 50GB that would really stink if we lost it and is unrecoverable (original GA drawings, our autocad - as built drawings) - and 10GB of totally critical stuff, including a MS SQL database that supports Sharepoint and MS CRM.
Click to expand...

I love you. I work for a backup software company as the quality assurance manager of the company. You know exactly what you need to backup, know what is critical, what you can live without, and what you need to restore quickly. You are basically a backup software technical support guy's wet dream. :D

There are a number of solutions out there for you, and I have to tell you a lot of people are dumping tape to go to disk based backups. I would highly suggest a combination of disk based backups and online based backups. What I would suggest at minimum of a 5 day daily rotation of usb/removable/nas/whatever local storage you want, of all of your data for fast recovery. Then I would suggest also doing an online backup of your 50GB unrecoverable and 10GB critical data daily. Yes, the initial backup will suck, do it over a weekend or choose a backup provider that will let you do an initial 'seed' via a portable hdd. Choose an online backup software that will do subincremential backups of files. Such as if 100KB of a 5GB file changes that day, the backup software only backs up that 100KB and whatever overhead the backup software will have.

A couple examples of online backup software that will do that for you, each of the companies below, I believe, give links to their service providers so you can check out prices for the online storage.
www.ahsay.com
www.novastor.com Disclaimer: I work for this company
www.remote-backup.com

Edit: Also, yes you have to be very careful with your sharepoint backup, make sure to research that when looking for solutions.
 
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