I'd like to throw the ADIC out the window
July 16, 2009 12:04 PM Subscribe
Looking for recommendations/experiences with business-class online backups.
I'm currently looking at MozyPro as a remote backup solution for some in-house server hardware at my business. We've got an ADIC, but it's big and clunky, and I hate managing tapes.
We don't have any client-facing stuff here (we have hardware at a colo for that), but we're running a file server and IIS/MS SQL for our bug tracking software and some staging apps. If anyone's run it (or a competitor's service, I'm open to suggestions), how is it running for you? I'm particularly interested if you've restored a db from them.
I'm currently looking at MozyPro as a remote backup solution for some in-house server hardware at my business. We've got an ADIC, but it's big and clunky, and I hate managing tapes.
We don't have any client-facing stuff here (we have hardware at a colo for that), but we're running a file server and IIS/MS SQL for our bug tracking software and some staging apps. If anyone's run it (or a competitor's service, I'm open to suggestions), how is it running for you? I'm particularly interested if you've restored a db from them.
Well, there is always IronMountain, they have an online product. You can use Jungledisk which leverages Amazon's S3 storage.
You may also want to dump that ADIC and get a DataDomain, which is like, nifty for near line storage and a helluvalot easier than going to tape for shit.
posted by iamabot at 12:31 PM on July 16, 2009
You may also want to dump that ADIC and get a DataDomain, which is like, nifty for near line storage and a helluvalot easier than going to tape for shit.
posted by iamabot at 12:31 PM on July 16, 2009
Can't speak to MozyPro, but I'm use and am a big proponet of rsync.net for automated encrypted backups.
posted by namewithoutwords at 12:36 PM on July 16, 2009
posted by namewithoutwords at 12:36 PM on July 16, 2009
bah, I'm a user and big proponent of... where's my 3 minute editing window, pb?
posted by namewithoutwords at 12:37 PM on July 16, 2009
posted by namewithoutwords at 12:37 PM on July 16, 2009
I guess the first thing to ask is how much are you planning on backing up offsite, and how big is your outgoing pipe? I've done a few offsite backup setups for various companies, and one thing that is usually a huge gotcha is the outgoing pipe. If your office is on DSL or a cable modem you won't be able to push more than a handful of gigs (like 3-5) a day even with the outgoing side completely saturated, and if you're planning on backing up dozens or hundreds of gigs, that will literally take months to get synched.
Then there's the question of what you're backing up and what's changing on them. If it's something substantial like huge mailbox files for users that these services can't back up incrementally you might never get ahead of the 8-ball: you can sync 5 gigs of files/day over your office connection, but with 20 users, each with a half-gig .pst file that's 10 gigs of changed files that need to go out.
I hate tapes as well, so what I usually end up putting in place is a blend of backup strategies. Critical files that are small, like documents, spreadsheets, accounting data, etc gets put on the offsite backup system. For the rest (and also a copy of the stuff on the offsite sync) a portable hard drive is used, usually a large 500GB or 1TB drive in a 3.5" USB enclosure. Nightly full backups are put on the drive automatically via backup software. For the Windows world, I find Syncback does all right with this, or I just write a batch file or two, *NIX there are many options to use but there I again usually just write a script, and then every Friday the portable drive is swapped with one from the offsite locale.
As for your specific question about MozyPro, can't help you there just yet, but if you had asked me this 2 weeks from now I could have given you my thoughts on it, as coincidentally there's a client of ours who is having us deploy this very thing for them.
posted by barc0001 at 3:01 PM on July 16, 2009
Then there's the question of what you're backing up and what's changing on them. If it's something substantial like huge mailbox files for users that these services can't back up incrementally you might never get ahead of the 8-ball: you can sync 5 gigs of files/day over your office connection, but with 20 users, each with a half-gig .pst file that's 10 gigs of changed files that need to go out.
I hate tapes as well, so what I usually end up putting in place is a blend of backup strategies. Critical files that are small, like documents, spreadsheets, accounting data, etc gets put on the offsite backup system. For the rest (and also a copy of the stuff on the offsite sync) a portable hard drive is used, usually a large 500GB or 1TB drive in a 3.5" USB enclosure. Nightly full backups are put on the drive automatically via backup software. For the Windows world, I find Syncback does all right with this, or I just write a batch file or two, *NIX there are many options to use but there I again usually just write a script, and then every Friday the portable drive is swapped with one from the offsite locale.
As for your specific question about MozyPro, can't help you there just yet, but if you had asked me this 2 weeks from now I could have given you my thoughts on it, as coincidentally there's a client of ours who is having us deploy this very thing for them.
posted by barc0001 at 3:01 PM on July 16, 2009
Are you using a SAN/NAS/iscsi for critical storage or is it all local to the servers of interest? Most commercial filers now have some type of block-level synchronization module that can sync changes to a remote filer with cheaper slow disks.
posted by benzenedream at 3:35 PM on July 16, 2009
posted by benzenedream at 3:35 PM on July 16, 2009
Response by poster: if you had asked me this 2 weeks from now I could have given you my thoughts on it
I'd love to hear from you in two weeks on this.
Our backup needs aren't so high in volume, which is why something like Mozy struck me as a legit possibility. We do mail through Google, so that's a giant headache we avoid. I don't see our day-to-day deltas being nearly high enough that bandwidth will be an issue beyond the initial backup. I'm mostly concerned with how nicely it plays with "live" files like SQL Server databases.
Are you using a SAN/NAS/iscsi for critical storage or is it all local to the servers of interest?
It's all local.
posted by mkultra at 12:40 PM on July 17, 2009
I'd love to hear from you in two weeks on this.
Our backup needs aren't so high in volume, which is why something like Mozy struck me as a legit possibility. We do mail through Google, so that's a giant headache we avoid. I don't see our day-to-day deltas being nearly high enough that bandwidth will be an issue beyond the initial backup. I'm mostly concerned with how nicely it plays with "live" files like SQL Server databases.
Are you using a SAN/NAS/iscsi for critical storage or is it all local to the servers of interest?
It's all local.
posted by mkultra at 12:40 PM on July 17, 2009
I'd set up a SQL Maintenance Plan to export the database somewhere periodically and then back that export up rather than doing a live backup. Then as long as the backup solution can handle basic NTFS files and ACLs you're set - otherwise the db vendor and backup client will be in a versioning arms race.
posted by benzenedream at 2:38 PM on July 17, 2009
posted by benzenedream at 2:38 PM on July 17, 2009
I will give you an update on real-world experience once I have it, but as far as "live" file updates go, from what I can tell it appears their system is actually able to do deltas on changed files, as referenced here when they talk about backup of PST files. Not sure how well that will play with a database file though since your database will almost certainly change while the updates are in progress. You might have to settle for nightly database dumps that get backed up instead.
posted by barc0001 at 2:41 PM on July 17, 2009
posted by barc0001 at 2:41 PM on July 17, 2009
« Older Suggestions for kayaking spots around Chicago | Baby's First No-Hives Cupcakes, from the Hive Mind Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by santaliqueur at 12:06 PM on July 16, 2009