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Backup for Remote Users

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by jtgourley

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I have 150+ remote laptop users running NT workstation. I'm trying to come up with the most effective yet economical way for the users to backup critical data. The backup facility in NT is not an option due to the tape requirement. Has anyone previously come up with a solution? What are some of the better options?

6 replies

by mckaytech

A lot of it depends on the speed of your remote links. With decent links, a product like ReplicaNDM (www.previo.com) might work well for you - with this product you create Replica servers and they syncronize with your laptops by sending only incremental changes so it's a pretty efficient use of bandwidth. And it doesn't require a lot of user effort.

If your remote users are really remote, it might be worthwhile to consider parallel-port or USB CD-RW units to issue with the laptop. At about 700meg per disk and quite cheap for the media, it works well if your users can be trusted to actually do the backups.

I've seen other methods (periodically copying certain directories to a company server or using Exchange folders) but they tend to be pretty hard on bandwidth.

regards!

paul

by rraheb

I think it depends on the nature of the data, how often do the users connect to your server, how fast is your connection, and whether you can depend on the users or not.

I guess that if you're dealing with a small volume of data, then you can have a script which is run whenever the user connects to your domain which copies files from a cetain folder on the user's PC to another folder on the Server. In this case the user should have access to the folder on the server.

Or if you trust your users, then you can rely on something like CD-RW, ZIP drives, JAZZ drives depending on your budget and size of data.

Hope this was helpful.

Rafik El-Raheb.

by village boy

Some possible solutions...

1. Using a removable media, such as CDR, CDRW, zip drive, super disk, where the users can do the backup on their own. (assume the user is capable of doing so and willing to do so !)The cost will be on the device you putto the user. Media is cheap.

2. Sycronization to the server and backup at the server, this will take your bandwidth away, and may frustrated the user if their link is slow.

3. There is a software call Telebackup by Veritas, will do the backupand restore on the remote computer easily and fast while they are remote, cost around US 100 per user.
www.veritas.com.

Good luck.

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