ups & backup reccomendations

[mstarkie]

hello eveyone!

Setup
1 x HP Pro Server Win 2003 R2
80 Staff sers
500 student users

I have just finished setting up a domain network for my school with the above server.

What I am looking for is a reccomendation as to a good UPS. It would just be for that 1 machine and about 20-30 mins backup would be good enough.

Now the tricky part and most importantly I need to implement a backup solution. Ideally something that can be quickly restored (high speed media).

This is the first time I have had to buy a backup package as servers I have previously worked on have alreadyy been configured for backup.

Any advice would be very much appreciated!

Regards
Matt

[kmount]

Hi Matt,

I always stick with APC when I buy UPS' simply because of the proven reliability and the PowerChute software is easy to configure/maintain.

To get 25-30 mins you may need to pay a bit more.

For example, a APC Smart UPS 1000VA will do 6.1mins at full load but you can measure what you're currently pulling and adjust that as necessary.

You can move the scale around depending upon what you're after.

Backups wise, do you need to entertain SQL or Exchange or any fun things? - How much data are you envisaging needing to back up etc?

[SC-UK]

Another vote for APC kit; it's what I've always used and apart from having to replace batteries, have never had a problem with it.

As kmount stated however, if you are looking at 20-30 minutes backup you will probably need to spend a little bit of money. More so if you want the 20-30 minutes to also power a TFT or something to help you get the server shutdown in case of emergency!

[mstarkie]

hello

thankyou for your replies!

apc sounds good enough for me. maybe my expectations where a bit too high.

with regards backup nothing fancy. At present abour 12 gig worth of user personal storage, 6 gig software, and 2 gig shared files. All transferred from previous server, so I canr see it growing too rapidly.

also how do you go on with the settings (group policy etc) is there a package that will do these as well?

Again my expectations might be way off but is their a solution for example if my os hard drive went down I could replace and restore?

Again any advice much appreciated.

Matt

[kmount]

My personal view would be to have RAID in the server so it's tolerant for a disk to fail without any need to manually restore/etc.

For back ups, I'd be looking at using something like Backup Exec (other people will have more ideas for this) so that in the event the server did fail, you would install a base copy of the OS, install the backup exec agent, restore the lot and reboot. (In theory). - Whether you go for a tape drive, or some kind of removable hard disk is up to you really but I think RAID would answer your quick restore need whilst being realistic for the 'worst' case scenario.

[sparkeh]

UPS: I also always use APC

Backup: I would definitely go for RAID for starters. Currently I look at RAID 5 with hot swap hard disks so you can pull out the bad disk and replace with a new without any downtime. Also I like to have a redundant spare that can kick in immediately in the event of a problem. Therefore you can afford to lose two disks.
Of course you shouldn't rely on RAID as a backup solution. Personally I am happy to use NT Backup and backup to a NAS box and removable cartridge such as this for offsite backup

[mstarkie]

Hello

Again thankyou for your replies!

Would the following be a good backup strategy:

Daily : Incremental user file backups
Weekly (weekend) : Complete C: (OS) image

Does that sound any good?

Is there a program that will do a complete c: image to a NAS box.

Thanks again,
Matt

[kmount]

For the small amount of data you have currently you could probably do a full back up of everything nightly and it would finish in time but yes, daily incrementals would be fine.

For a complete copy, yes, ntbackup (included with windows) will do this, also make sure you have the system state.

[sparkeh]

Currently I take a full backup of everything at the week end and incremental of everything every night. I also have a 4 week rotation so for week 1 I have a full back and incrementals, week 2 a full back up and incrementals etc. This means I can go back the last 4 weeks if I need to. In addition I have termly yearly backups.

This might be a bit ott as I see you only have 12GB of data so actually for you it could be worth just doing a full backup everynight.

NTBackup will do what you want but please remember to include the system state

[mstarkie]

Hello

Has anyone had any experience of backup assist?

Looks just the ticket. My understanding from the descriptions is that it is just a gui for NTBackup.

I was thinking about this linked with a 1TB hard drive. Would you have this as NAS or a USB drive?, any suggestions.

Only problem with this is that there is not off site backup with it.

Matt

[IanT]

I hope you got more than 1 DC?

[mstarkie]

Hello

Only 1, is this bad?

Admin has its own (i stay away ) and i have the old server as backup.

Matt

[IanT]

You should ALWAYS have more than 1 Domain Controller

[mjs_mjs]

yeah go for 2 dc's - adds rudundancy,

we have 1000 students and 150 staff say, and 3 dc's and 3 member servers.

setup a workstation somewhere else, in a cupboard if needs be, with your tb drive the main reason for offsite storage is if someone nicks your servers or they physically get damaged by say flood or fire. back up to the workstation. if you have less than 40GB total user files go for a full each night - it's easy and space is cheap atm. also do a full systemstate every night if u can, not a shadow copy.

for power - apc all the way we have 3 2200 towers, 2 2200 racked up and a 1500 on our core switch and internet gateway. if ur buget allows get the one that messages the network when power goes down.