offsite backups

Skidilliplop · 11 Mar 2009 at 14:23

bigredshark said:
you need to have a decent reason to use tape these days

^reason #1 It's a crapload cheaper

Reason #2 it's quick and doesn't affect performance.

You can get previous versions of files by backing up the volume shadow copy info which most backup agents do nowdays. IF there's only 200GB of storage needed then it's obviously a smallish affair.

I'm not against remote backups as they are fantastic for securing data. But I would suggest having a local system there aswell. Mainly because remote backups are reliant on networks, if your ISP has an issue or your router goes down or something it can prevent backups / restores. Also as mentioned, time till up is lots longer.

I'd say given the amounts unless this data is priceless to you then internet backup isn't necessary, £300 + vat per month is a lot of money for an insurange policy. Add to that the bandwidth provision for it. Daily tapes taken off site would be fine for a smaller operation.

If you do decide to go remote then you will want a NAS/TAPE system along side it for fast restores.

bigredshark · 11 Mar 2009 at 15:25

My principle argument against offsite tapes is it's unreliable and prone to people forgetting. How many times does the assigned person forget to take the tape with them at night? How many backups fail because the drive needs cleaning?

Then even if you do have a good offsite backup and the place burns down...how long to get a new tape drive from a supplier and have it installed in a new server? Even 8Mbit DSL is going to restore 80GB or so in a day.

Added, most decent online backup providers will

A) have a local storage facility where the most recent xGB of data is stored on a local machine so it doesn't need to pull it down from the cloud to restore

B) be able to provide a copy of the data on tape within 24 hours of your request

At the end of the day it's personal preference what you use and some people will rule out online backup but to be honest all the big problems have been solved so there's no technical reason it won't work.

Skidilliplop · 11 Mar 2009 at 15:46

bigredshark said:
My principle argument against offsite tapes is it's unreliable and prone to people forgetting. How many times does the assigned person forget to take the tape with them at night? How many backups fail because the drive needs cleaning?

Then even if you do have a good offsite backup and the place burns down...how long to get a new tape drive from a supplier and have it installed in a new server? Even 8Mbit DSL is going to restore 80GB or so in a day.

Added, most decent online backup providers will

A) have a local storage facility where the most recent xGB of data is stored on a local machine so it doesn't need to pull it down from the cloud to restore

B) be able to provide a copy of the data on tape within 24 hours of your request

At the end of the day it's personal preference what you use and some people will rule out online backup but to be honest all the big problems have been solved so there's no technical reason it won't work.

True in the instance where the premises is destroyed it's better, however time til up is irrelevant then as you'll need a new premesis

For the common kinds of restore like failed ARRAYs, flooded server rooms or migrating to a bigger/different piece of hardware tape or disk is faster and simpler. In most cases tape in, press and hold the button, boot the server to kick off disater recovery. Usually looking at 2-3 hours to restore and most Carepacks etc will give you an engineer with a new server onsite within 4 hours.
In these cases switching gear is usually damaged too and the network will need to be working first. Online backup is good to have but i wouldn't use it on it's own, it's more of a fallback "Plan B" resource.

Vanilla · 12 Mar 2009 at 08:28

Try Mozy Enterprise

Ish · 12 Mar 2009 at 08:49

Thanks for all the input.

After weighing up all the pros & cons for our needs an Ultrium tape drive seems the more suitable option especially when looking at the price of an Ultrium on auction sites.

We already have backups going to our NAS box so the tape drive will be used as well and the tapes taken offsite.

Sin_Chase · 12 Mar 2009 at 12:37

bigredshark said:
My principle argument against offsite tapes is it's unreliable and prone to people forgetting. How many times does the assigned person forget to take the tape with them at night? How many backups fail because the drive needs cleaning?

Then even if you do have a good offsite backup and the place burns down...how long to get a new tape drive from a supplier and have it installed in a new server? Even 8Mbit DSL is going to restore 80GB or so in a day.

Added, most decent online backup providers will

A) have a local storage facility where the most recent xGB of data is stored on a local machine so it doesn't need to pull it down from the cloud to restore

B) be able to provide a copy of the data on tape within 24 hours of your request

At the end of the day it's personal preference what you use and some people will rule out online backup but to be honest all the big problems have been solved so there's no technical reason it won't work.

I personally do not rule it out, but to play devils advocate here it goes

Anyone serious about their data often outsources tape collection/delivery and storage to companies like mine. No forgetting here and full documentation on Tape Movement as well as full fireproofed storage etc etc etc.

Being sent a copy of your data on a tape is no good unless they are supplying the tape drive to go with it and a suitable HBA should the client not have one. And if they did, they would unlikely be relying on online backups for their primary backup solution.

Benefits of online backups for quick one-off restoration of files could be argued as superfluous to a Windows environment in the face of VSS.

Additionally Online backups require a 'working environment', almost all tape based software solutions I know of have Disaster Recovery options for bare metal restoration. Has Online Backup made this advancement yet? If so, I would be interested in seeing some white papers/case studies.

There are very few of our clients I could comfortably recommend online backups to, and all of them are very small clients with either low volumes of data and/or no reliance on quick disaster recovery processes.