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How to handle offsite backup

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by sitizn wille 1 view

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I would like some insight on how other people handle backup and disaster recovery problems. I am tring to get a backup server running offsite. We currently back up to tape every night using veritas. I set up another server at a branch office that is connected via t-1. We set a backup job to run over the weekend using the built in program ntbackup. It is not even comming close to finishing over the entire weekend. We have tried only backing up the most critial data and still no luck. I am looking into using veritas to do this, but I can't seem to backup to a remote location (this is what we use to do our tape backup).
How do other people out there handle the offsite backup problem? Is there a program out there that has really good compression rate or am I even headed in the right direction.

2 servers
one that does nightly backup with veritas that backs up to tape.
second server that sits offsite and is used to replicate active directory and this is the one I would like to send a backup job to.

Thanks
SW

20 replies

by cactus pete

My firm, maybe bigger than yours but still should be appropriate, just switched from veritas to evault. The compression is incredible, and you only perform the first full backup, from then on everything is deltas... So subsequent backups are that much faster.

We are now backing up our backups to a remote office, all disk to disk, in a fraction of the time it used to take, and there are no more tapes to worry about [though we still keep them around for good measure and future possible needs.]

by tonythetiger

No matter what product you use. To back up an additional server with Veritas, you would need to buy a remote agent license.

Are you trying to do a full backup of the remote server? Maybe you could do incrementals. How much of that data changes from day to day?

Another option is to buy a tape drive for the other server.

by dubdays

If you're trying to pump tons of gigs over a T1, it will choke. You may have some success with a T3, but I doubt you'd want to pay for all of that just to do nightly backups (don't get me wrong, backups are VERY important, but you probably can't justify a higher speed line based on that alone, especially when other options are available). Tapes are great (well, as "great" as possible) for ON-SITE backups, but they wouldn't work for the remote backups (unless you got a drive on the other end, which would kind of defeat the purpose).

Depending on the server artecture you use, rsync on unix/linux boxes is great for this. It automatically only updates files that have been changed, and it's mainly used to mirror FTP servers on the Internet anyway. I even believe they have a windows version available, but it takes significant tweaking to get it to do what you want it to do. But, hey, it's open source, and it's free. Sounds like a good deal to me...

by sitizn wille

Never heard of evault? Might be worth checking into.
I finally was able to get ahold of a real person at Veritas. They recomended a program called replication exec, It is supose to replicate the data we select to the server that site offsite. They offer a 30 trail so I think that is what we are going to try.
The main thing is that we have to backup our data offsite to passify the auditors. Sounds easy but has turned out to be a mess. Since our veritas sits on the main server, we use it to do a tape backup every night. It can't be set to backup to the server that site offstite (Veritas claims because it site on a diff subnet it can't be done with veritas backup exec.

Is anyone familiar with the replication exec program from veritas? After the first replication is done, then it syncs and just updates what has changed according to the sales rep at Veritas?
Thanks
SW

by cactus pete

Replication exec is for business continuity, not restoring old data... If you're looking at something like replication, consider Double-Take.

Hope to hear what you decide and how it goes.

by sitizn wille

What is double take?

At first we had the one server that did active dir, file server, dns, and exchange, everything. Now we have to have a disaster recover plan so now the deal with the backup server is here. I have set it up to replicate active dir so far. We now are tring to find a way to get the most important data to this new offsite server. I guess I am not sure if it needs to be backed up or replicated isn't it kind of the same thing?
I am not exactly sure what direction i need to be going, but i guess business continunity is the thing I am looking for, if our building burns down this server could take over and everything could keep running. We are only looking to (replicate/backup) our most important data, don't really have to backup exchange because the offsite server will not hold it all.
The main server is 2k3
the offisite server is 2000 server.
connected via t-1
if that helps anything?
Thanks
SW

by dixiedirtbag

Check out the remote backup software offered by Remote Backup Systems, Inc. It is called RBackup, and can be used to backup servers and workstations alike - on or off of your LAN. The software is actually designed for commercial remote backup service providers, but apparently many companies use it to backup their own stuff to an offsite box.

They also have a trial version that you can download and demo so that you can do some benchmarking on transfer speeds, etc.

The website is http://remote-backup.com

Hope that helps!

ddb

by sitizn wille

We are currently looking into a few of these choices. Going to make a few calls and try out some of the trail versions. I will keep you posted on what we find out.

Also, they say do not test in a production enviroment, which I can understand to a point, but who has extra servers just sitting around doing nothing.
What are your thoughs/comments and experiance with this problem? We are thinking about trying it between to workstations, but it is not really the same thing.
Thanks
SW

by dixiedirtbag

I tested my install of RBS' software in a production environment without issues. I was also able to create additional (up to 50, if I remember correctly!) and to do customization of the client GUI during the trial period. When I went to production, I simply installed the production disks over the top of the eval, changed the Serial Number, and kept on rolling.

It was a bit challenging to get setup initially, due to the number of options available, but once set up it has worked for us very well.

by ken.farley

It is better to kill a few test workstations built to replicate the production environment that kill your production systems.

Sure you might have backups, but it will still impact your production users if you loose the system through your testing.

Good way to loose your job too!

by sitizn wille

I agree with the testing on a workstation, but how do you test a program that is going to run on a server. you have to install 2k3 and exchange and so on and so forth. and deal with the registration and all that crap with licensing and updates.. what a mess.
SW

by sitizn wille

It looks like we are going to use Replication Exec by Veritas, Have tried a trial on two workstations and it works well. If we do the first sync of data onsite and get it up and running, then when we move it to the offiste location the main replication is done, then all we have to do it set up it up and it will replicate what has changed.

I guess my question is,
Has anyone here used replication exec in a production enviroment for any length of time?
Any problems concerns that I should be aware of?
Cheers
SW

by sitizn wille

I think we have decided to go with Replication Exec by Veritais.
However, we tried installing the demo on our 2k3 server and could not install it, It says the install was interupted please try again later?

Not sure what is wrong, I am going to do some net searching... anyone has any ideas?
Cheers
SW

by cactus pete

During installs, disable antivirus packages. Other than that, Veritas is always helpful when you call them.

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