MIS Backup

[tscnmuk]

Does anybody have a prefered solution for an MIS Backup system. We basically require a complete mirror of the MIS system (which has not yet been implimented) so that should the serve containing the system fail, a secondary copy can be instantly activated. What is the easiest way to go about this?

Thanks

[bossman]

Symantec livestate: Create bare metal backup image which can then be built back onto any other server within minutes and hey presto. I think tests on 170Gb server rebuild from image file 15-20 mins max.

I think Acronis Server bare metal backup does much the same thing backup to nas server, set up the incremental function which will backup live data even SQL and keep it up to date so at anytime you can re-instate any server from anywhere.

Other than this buy another server of the same ilk and keep it updated from the other til needed if you want it immediately.

[tscnmuk]

Personally I don't like the idea of having a second "wasted" server to do this job. I would much rather have a NAS device backing up the MIS constantly and if the server running the MIS went down for anyreason, it wouldn't take very long to stuff it onto another server. Or even run the MIS data directly from a mirrored NAS. Can anybody help with an opinion of running from NAS that I can push onto SMT to get them to do it this way instead?

[NetworkGeezer]

Personally I don't like the idea of having a second "wasted" server to do this job.

Then you two choices virtualisation or backip up data rather than a whole server state.

I would much rather have a NAS device backing up the MIS constantly and if the server running the MIS went down for anyreason,

A constant backup of a live data base isn't possible. The most you can do is take periodic snapshots.

it wouldn't take very long to stuff it onto another server.

Virtual Machines are best for rapid restore when you are restoring to disimilar physical hardware.

Or even run the MIS data directly from a mirrored NAS. Can anybody help with an opinion of running from NAS that I can push onto SMT to get them to do it this way instead?

You haven't defined what kind of MIS your running do you mean just student/staff records database such as SIMS, CMIS, Integris,Bromcom etc or do you have other important systems do you wish to protect.

Most MIS systems run some king of SQL database and this normally needs to reside of the machine running the server software. So NAS is not feasible. Did you mean SAN (Storage Are Network). This would allow sepration of storage from processing.

The problem still remains of what to do about dissimilar replacement hardware if aren't willing to have a redundant standby server to hand.

It's either VM or hone your MIS software build procedure until you're like a Formula One pit crew changing tires

[maniac]

We run CMIS with E-portal in our school, which has an SQL backend.

What we've done, rather than have a complete redundant system, is make the servers the MIS system relies on as fail safe as possible. They all have redundant drives, redundant power supplies, dual gigabit networking, and are all very new servers. We've set SQL to back up all our data to our storage server every 6 hours (could be more often, but we felt 6 hours was adequate) which then in turn gets backed up to tape every night, so there's always plenty of current copies of the SQL data available in the event of a failure.

Hopefully it'll never happen, but in the event of our SQL or MIS server failing, we could have it back up on another box within a short period of time, probably less than 2 hours, possibly as short as an hour. Testing our disaster recovery procedures is on the cards in the near future so I guess we'll find out!