IDR Solution or Different?

[k3n85]

We are looking for a complete solution to bare-metal restore and there are a few options out there. I know Veritas/Symantec have "Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery Server Edition (previously LiveState) and Acronis True Image are some that I'm aware of. It seems overpriced for Acronis to purchase one license for each of the servers you want to image ($700-900) for Enterprise, and haven't heard the greatest for IDR through BE.

I was curious as to what does the best bare-metal for the price. Price isn't the biggest deal but the ability to take a snapshot once a month would be very re-assuring.

We currently don't have other software setup to do a bare-metal restore and our full backup of data from Exec is as close as we can get.

Also to mention .. ghost?

 

[LawnBoy]

We use Acronis for bare-metal restores. The price is a drop in the bucket compared to the services we're protecting with it. Acronis also has a Universal Restore module, which will allow you to restore an image to different hardware.

 

[k3n85]

What sort of systems are you running? We have Win2k3, Linux (variety of types), Mac OS X, Novell Netware ... where I would imagine the Linux may work for both Linux and Mac.

 

[LawnBoy]

W2k, W2k3, SuSE 10.1, Netware 6.5. With Acronis, I have to make offline images on everything except the Win boxes.

I must admit, I have not done a restore of anything other than the Win boxes.

 

[steveot]

BEWSR only support Windows System but it can restore to different hardware/processor/raid configs.

No options for MAC, etc

I think Veritas Netbackup has baremetal restore for all the OS you listed above the the price increase is goiung to be dramatic.

Looking at acrois website it look as if they have version that can take and image of the resources you want to protect

 

[LawnBoy]

I have Acronis 9.1 for windows servers. I use it to make offline images of my linux and netware servers.

A good imager, regardless of manufacturer, will image any disk regardless of what's on it. If I want the bells and whistles ('live' imaging, universal restore) I have to run it on a win box, but if all I want is a basic image it'll do the linux and netware just fine.

 

[k3n85]

How does buying/licensing really work w/ Acronis? 1 central server and then like $800 for each server you want to backup ?

I may find that this would be an expensive solution for every server we have.

 

[LawnBoy]

I don't use a central server, just bought a pack of licenses and I store the images on an unrelated server that has extra disk space.

 

[TigerDivision]

I have found Acronis to be very good to do bare-metal restores using their Universal Restore option. There were a few hiccups with their earlier versions but so far have not encountered any problems with their latest build. Pricey yes, but I think it's worth the money.

Pierre