Hello everyone,
I am starting to research replacing our old tape system as the media is getting harder and harder to find. I was a little intrested in what everyone else is currently using for their backups? Still using Tape, usb hdd's, internal hdd's, flash drives? Any suggestions on a new system?
Thanks in advance,
-Sean
We have a dedicated backup server. Running Symantec Backup Exec 12. It performs a full backup to disk nightly and then duplicates to tape. It also performs 2 hour differentials and 15 minute log backups to disk. This way we can always perform a restore to a point within the last 15 minutes. The same server is also used to backup our domain controller and several other servers in the organization. It has an 800gb raid5 array for the backups and a 400/800 LTO tape drive for the duplication. By going to disk first we have our full backup window down to about 20-25 minutes. The duplication to tae can take as long as it needs without effecting anything. Differentials take about 5 minutes and log backups take about 2 minutes. Just to give you an idea of size our databases are about 17gb total. Using this setup our entire organization can be backed up onto a single tape which only needs to be changed out on Fridays for the weekly and on Mondays to start of the dailys. The other plus to our setup is that since the last backup also exists on the RAID array we can restore our database in approximately 25min in the case of disaster. If you have any more questions about our setup or topology feel free to drop me a line.
Hey Sean!
We're using a system provided by a local DR vendor. I'd be happy to share details about the company with anyone off line if they are interested. I don't want to look like a shill for them!
The system we have in place is utilizes client agent software on the source systems that then back up to a 4TB disk array. The software is designed to start with a seed backup and then capture changes from that point forward. It's done in a way that we can define our RTO and RPO objectives and then ensure that we have the data available accordingly.
Clearly, our RTO/RPO objectives for Tessitura are pretty tight. We are backing up our transaction logs every 15 minutes using SQL. We also grab the full database every hour using our back up system. Our recovery points are pretty extensive as well.
We also back up all our server systems to our disk vault. This includes full file level, database, Exchange store (both database and MAPI for individual mailbox recovery) and system states. These back ups are done at least nightly. Some are done a bit more frequently. A few non-critical systems are backed up less often.
Lastly, we replicate our entire back up disk vault to another disk vault in a leased data center about 25 miles away. This way we always have a copy of all our data that is no more than one day old stored off site.
The local data vault provides wire speed recovery. Recovery over the net from the remote vault is painful at best. It's really just there in case we lose the onsite vault. In that case we would most likely either recover our servers at the remote site or move the remote vault here. In any case, recovery of large amounts of data really needs to be done at local LAN speeds to be practical. A very fat WAN pipe might work, but we're not willing to pay for that right now.
Feel free to ask if you have any questions! We do like our solution. Once implemented it's really pretty hands off accept for the occasional restore that might be necessary.
Dan
Director, Information Services, CSO