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IT and network folks - backup issues

SkaredShtles

Michael Bolton
Sep 21, 2003
65,375
12,529
In a van.... down by the river
binary visions said:
Yep.

It's not that hard. If he doesn't know how, he could learn how very easily and quickly. There's no excuse for bad backups :rolleyes:
For sure. I started at a company back in '98 as the sole IT guy (Unix software dev shop) and I told them initially that my primary task was to get a backup solution in place. Even these seasoned IT guys didn't realize the *imperative* nature of good backups.
 

SK6

Turbo Monkey
Jul 10, 2001
7,586
0
Shut up and ride...
Ah, while I may agree, I have no choice in the matter whatsoever. I'm an end user getting it the end. However, I what to find a solution that will work and be reliable.
 

ummbikes

Don't mess with the Santas
Apr 16, 2002
1,794
0
Napavine, Warshington
We just converted from Veritas to tape; we now are Live State to HDD, to portable HDD taken offsite. It's a little clunky, but our tape drive broke and Live State images the hdd and is easy to restore.
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
Most external HDDs are too expensive and delicate to be doing regular offsite rotation.
 

sanjuro

Tube Smuggler
Sep 13, 2004
17,373
0
SF
splat said:
Unbiased ??? :rofl:

I can't comment on what i like best, Becasue it is against company policy :redhot:
Did I say Netbackup was the best, I ment to say ARCserve...
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
ET_SoCal said:
It's the restore that matters.
With Messagerite email restores are great - users logs into the OWA like interface and restores it themselves - a copy is emailed to their email account again...
 

Ciaran

Fear my banana
Apr 5, 2004
9,839
15
So Cal
binary visions said:
Tape backups are still very standard across the industry. His inability to set it up properly doesn't mean it doesn't work well :)

They're not the ideal archival solution, obviously, since tapes eventually lose their integrity, but for day-to-day backups a rotating set of tapes work extremely well.
:stupid:

That's what we use here at Kaiser. We replace the tapes regularly, the back ups run automatically every night, and we keep them in fire proof safes on premesis. (We should keep them in a different building but we have our share of laziness too.) I believe we're running Veritas Back-Up Exec.

All the medical records (enterprise wide) are housed in a central data warehouse/server farm. I have no idea of what those guys use.
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
splat said:
Sepaton looks cool too! ( by the way Sepaton is No tapes splet backwards )
There is also the RXT Saberdrive w/RAID 0, 1, 1+0, and 5 support...

Course you could probably buy those cheap GoVaults and setup a software RAID setup w/groups of drives.
 

sanjuro

Tube Smuggler
Sep 13, 2004
17,373
0
SF
ET_SoCal said:
It's the restore that matters.

Were using Veritas Netbackup, BackupExec, Windows Backup (with ntmsmgr.msc) ArcServIt & batch files on different servers...

It's all linear
:rolleyes:
Restores is what matters. People obsess about backup windows, cpu utilization, tape costs; then send their tapes to some off-site facility which they have never seen and hope in 5 years their data will still be accessible, with a media format they haven't used in 5 years.

I am glad I am out of the backup business, especially since backup/vault products are gearing around one particular POS (Piece of Software): Microsoft Exchange.

Thanks to S-OX, my company (who coincidentally enough, makes a backup product which was mentioned in this thread) is set for life.
 

Ridemonkey

This is not an active account
Sep 18, 2002
4,108
1
Toronto, Canada
I see, well that's not really an issue for me as each monthly burning supersedes the previous, so at most the current dataset is a month oeld.
 

manhattanprjkt83

Rusty Trombone
Jul 10, 2003
9,644
1,214
Nilbog
Sort of off topic but i am currently using 2 lacie 250 gb to back up what is on my primary drive...Anyone every had reliability issues with lacie?
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
manhattanprjkt83 said:
Sort of off topic but i am currently using 2 lacie 250 gb to back up what is on my primary drive...Anyone every had reliability issues with lacie?
Lacie probably just puts the cheapest HDD they can get depending on date of manufacture. Do they support SMART monitor so you know when they are going to die soon?

Consumer oriented NAS with RAID5 is going to become pretty common soon - that would be a great option if you are paranoid.
 

manhattanprjkt83

Rusty Trombone
Jul 10, 2003
9,644
1,214
Nilbog
syadasti said:
Lacie probably just puts the cheapest HDD they can get depending on date of manufacture. Do they support SMART monitor so you know when they are going to die soon?

Consumer oriented NAS with RAID5 is going to become pretty common soon - that would be a great option if you are paranoid.
I dont know about SMART Monitor... I only turn them on for back up so a mechanical failure probably wont be what kills either of them. And yes i am about as paranoid as it gets, to much time invested to not be...
 
J

JRB

Guest
It's been a few years, but when I worked in the data center for a $29 billion company, we backed up on IBM 3590 tapes. It could be better, but we never had a failed recovery. We did this on the McLane mainframe and the Foodservice AS400. We backed up the MS/Citrix boxes on DT tape and kept everything off site. Important stuff was sent to a protected environment. Short answer is, if the guy can't back up, he needs to get a consultant to teach him. If that doesn't work, he needs to take my position here, if I get to leave, since it is not an IT position.
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
manhattanprjkt83 said:
I dont know about SMART Monitor... I only turn them on for back up so a mechanical failure probably wont be what kills either of them. And yes i am about as paranoid as it gets, to much time invested to not be...
Mechanical failure occurs much faster on external HDDs. Thats why external drives typically offer 1 yr warranties while internal drives 3-5 years.

Buffalo, Iomega, and others all offer or will be offering RAID5 consumer backup solutions.

You could also build your own NAS, but its obviously not as easy and not always cheaper.
 

SK6

Turbo Monkey
Jul 10, 2001
7,586
0
Shut up and ride...
I use a WD external HDD (120 gig). I back up some stuff to it, but I put ALL my school work on it.

The HDD does not move from its location except for very rarely.
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
sirknight6 said:
I use a WD external HDD (120 gig). I back up some stuff to it, but I put ALL my school work on it.

The HDD does not move from its location except for very rarely.
Consumer external HDD have only 1 year warranties cause they fail due to physical abuse from shock and poor thermal environment.
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
sirknight6 said:
SO, I should be fine then. The issue with the WD is it does not have a power button, so in essence, it is on all the time.
It won't last too long IMHO.

Most enclosures don't provide enough cooling for long time use.
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
sirknight6 said:
Lasted 3 years so far, so I guess I better start turning it off....:D
Well if you have it turned on and aren't really using it too often, its better for it versus turning it on and off all the time. You don't want the heads working too much.
 

SK6

Turbo Monkey
Jul 10, 2001
7,586
0
Shut up and ride...
That's what I was thinking. Maybe once a month I shut it down for a 24 hour period. The room its in is not hot at all and there is nothing around the Ext. HDD due to its location on the computer desk.

it does have are flow around it as well and on hot days the room is conditioned.

So, it seems to be ok...so far.
 

SkaredShtles

Michael Bolton
Sep 21, 2003
65,375
12,529
In a van.... down by the river
sirknight6 said:
That's what I was thinking. Maybe once a month I shut it down for a 24 hour period. The room its in is not hot at all and there is nothing around the Ext. HDD due to its location on the computer desk.

it does have are flow around it as well and on hot days the room is conditioned.

So, it seems to be ok...so far.
Are you backing up your school work?
 

fiddy_ryder

Turbo Monkey
Jun 17, 2005
1,653
0
Hollywood
Using CA here... they just impleted a NAS at our other site in Sacramento... I work for one of the largest financial firms in the nation...
 

HypNoTic

Man Whore
Aug 3, 2004
144
0
Montreal, Qc
Working at the largest bank in Canada. 17k employees.

Currently using a mix of ArcServe for main offices, Tivoli for remote sites and NAS w/scripts for DRP. All the data is sent to LTO tapes via a 200 tapes / 14 drives robot.

We are having major issues with ArcServe so we're currently testing Veritas BackupExec / NetBackup solutions instead.

Full on Sunday, incremental the rest of the week. Depending on the dept, rotation vary from 4 to 52 weeks for the tapes. All tapes are sent daily to offsite location.

Short term restore are adressed with Windows 2003 ShadowCopy, which work quite well for us. Most of our fileserver have at least 2 week of archives locally and the restore is virtually live once the user call the helpdesk. All fileservers are configured with RAID 5 minimally, and the main cluster is running RAID 5EE on a SAN.

All the tapes are fully encrypted. Never underestimate the bandwith of a truck filled with backup tapes!!!

Oh, and DVD is not even considered an option here. And yes, we pass the Sarbanes-Oxley audit every year, are almost ITIL compliant, and few other buzzword I dont really care. I'm just the VMWare specialist over here ;)
 

sanjuro

Tube Smuggler
Sep 13, 2004
17,373
0
SF
I can't believe this thread got segregated to the Tech Forum. I think other RM'ers want to hear about vaulting, tape striping vs plexing, and other fun backup topics!
 

ridiculous

Turbo Monkey
Jan 18, 2005
2,907
1
MD / NoVA
just make sure you take really good care of your tapes if you choose to do that. I had a friend back up a good 10 years worth of crap on tapes only to lose it to humidity last year.

I personally just back all my data up to a RAID with some redundancy. (Raid 5 w/ hotspare). I use seagate drives so theyre all covered for 5 years.
 

Ridemonkey

This is not an active account
Sep 18, 2002
4,108
1
Toronto, Canada
sanjuro said:
I can't believe this thread got segregated to the Tech Forum. I think other RM'ers want to hear about vaulting, tape striping vs plexing, and other fun backup topics!
If that's the case it'll be much easier for them to find it here. Yay! We did it!
 

SkaredShtles

Michael Bolton
Sep 21, 2003
65,375
12,529
In a van.... down by the river
ridiculous said:
just make sure you take really good care of your tapes if you choose to do that. I had a friend back up a good 10 years worth of crap on tapes only to lose it to humidity last year.
Yep - the recommendation is to refresh tapes every 3-5 years if you really care about the integrity of the data.