backing up 1

[jen0dorf]

Hi

have a client running server 2003sbs at one site and server 2003 at another.

They have the idea of using broadband to backup each server to the other site. One site uses exchange and has a backup of 22gb the other has a backup size of 4gb

Is this practicable and is there software to do this by schedule?

thanks

Ian

 

[ShackDaddy]

What are you upload speed links like at each site?

What about backing up the site with the smaller amount of data to the larger once a week and have the larger configured to do a network backup using something like iBackup or something like that?

I'm a reseller for OwnWebNow.com and sell my clients a pretty inexpensive backup they provide that uses the AhSay backend system. I haven't been able to find anything much cheaper than that besides Carbonite, and I don't know if I'd want to use Carbonite for server backup, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad if the data to be backed up is still under 40gb total.

The important thing is to make sure you are still doing proper Exchange-aware backups on your SBS box. Easiest way is to use the integrated SBS backup (NTBACKUP) wizard to set that up.

Dave Shackelford
Shackelford Consulting

 

[jen0dorf]

Hi

Thanks for that it gives food for thought. The client is paranoid about"Data off site" and finds it difficult to grasp that off site backups are secure. In the past they have used a 20/40gb tape backup but as is the norm it failed on a restore.

cheers

Ian

 

[jen0dorf]

Hi Again

just another question, is there an easy way to backup the smaller site to the larger site?

thanks

Ian

 

[ShackDaddy]

I have a client with two sites, and I have them connected with a hardware VPN (between two FireBox Edge devices). One site has an SBS 2003 box and the other a member server. I have a drive mapped on the member server to a share on the SBS box. I have a nightly NTBackup full backup job that writes the backup to the mapped drive. It is successful 90% or more of the time. The SBS box then includes that backup file in its own backups.

Or you could have the backup run locally on the server with the 4gb backup and then have a scheduled xcopy job.

In general, we're seeing use of tape disappear. It's more difficult to verify a tape backup as restorable, and in small environments it typically can only be restored to the server it was backed up on. Most of my clients now use USB and eSATA drives for backup. A typical small client might keep two USB drives and swap them every Friday night. That drive would be sized to be able to easily hold five full backups. Even though various things can cause a backup to fail, normally if your backups are well-configured and you're removing issues that crop up, having up to 10 full backups to choose from leaves you pretty recoverable. For larger clients I usually use a mixture of local RD-1000 devices that write each day's backups to a separate hard drive and off-site network backups. Archival backups are taken to a separate external disk every few months by manually firing off a separate backup job.

On thing you might think about is changing to back up to disk, and then having the ability to back your backups up to tape for off-site storage. That way you know you have local easily recoverable backups from disk, but you can also use your tapes for off-site. You can verify the recoverability of the disk backups more easily, and tape is less likely to be involved in recovery unless something catastrophic happens. You also don't have to worry as much about when to run your tape backups, since you are not backing up data that's in production and you are less likely to cause disk contention.

At one site that wanted cheap and lazy protection from theft but wasn't worried quite as worried about fire and didn't want to mess with off-site backups, I helped them put a fireproof safe at the opposite end of their building, up in the plenum (ceiling). They'd drilled a hole in it just large enough to run a network cable and some power into it (not sure that it was "fireproof" at that point) and then they put a network storage device (Buffalo LinkStation) in there. In addition to local backups to an external disk, they also copied backups to the NAS and stored images of their most important workstations on the NAS. There are some problems with that idea that can be pointed out, but for them it gave them what they wanted for three years and they were smug about the cleverness of it.

Anyway, there's some ideas for you.

Dave Shackelford
Shackelford Consulting

 

[jen0dorf]

Hi

Thanks I greatly apprecite the help and advice as a server non expert it's alwaus nice to be able to offer the client a variety of solutions

cheers

Ian