Cloud School Network Backup

[Darylrese]

Hi,

 

Does anyone here use a cloud backup system rather than backing up to tape?

 

I have just taken over as Network Manager in a school and they have SCDPM 2010 which is failing to backup to tape and no-one has sorted it for well over a year. There are so many errors id rather just scrap it and start fresh.

 

I want to backup to disk locally and then do a offsite cloud backup to replace tapes.

 

Anyone using a similar service? If so who do you recommend and how much is it likely to cost?

Edited October 8, 2013 by Darylrese

[MordyT]

I have used crashplan pro for backups... Although you might want to look into proe. Prices vary

[CyberNerd]

Amazon S3, Cloud Computing Storage for Files, Images, Videos

[Peter_W]

Amazon S3, Cloud Computing Storage for Files, Images, Videos

 

You may want to use Glacier instead. It's cheaper and is made for backups. http://aws.amazon.com/glacier/

[dhicks]

You may want to use Glacier instead. It's cheaper and is made for backups. Amazon Glacier

 

Although the resoration time is rather slow (a couple of hours) and the way Amazon does storage doesn't exactly match up with the way you use block devices. You can get local "cloud backed" storage appliances that can help with both these issues - restoring previous file versions is instant, and they'll show storage locally as a file share or similar. These kind of things are simple enough to set up yourself, too - just install a copy of FreeNAS on a machine with a bunch of hardrives in. FreeNAS will also handle offiste replication - place a second server in another school somewhere, have your local machine replicate to it.

[Peter_W]

Although the resoration time is rather slow (a couple of hours) and the way Amazon does storage doesn't exactly match up with the way you use block devices. You can get local "cloud backed" storage appliances that can help with both these issues - restoring previous file versions is instant, and they'll show storage locally as a file share or similar. These kind of things are simple enough to set up yourself, too - just install a copy of FreeNAS on a machine with a bunch of hardrives in. FreeNAS will also handle offiste replication - place a second server in another school somewhere, have your local machine replicate to it.

 

I was correcting the person I quoted but I wouldn't use anything as expensive as Amazon for offsite backups. FreeNAS is very good and a simple rsync should surfice.

[edutech4schools]

Another option (not true cloud backup) that I have been told is very good is the logmein backup.

 

https://secure.logmein.com/products/backup/

 

You pop a bit of software on any computers you want to be storage units and then set up backup sets etc on the computer you want to backup. The handy thing is if you have a large amount of data you can create a transfer backup set on a portable device and then import it at the other location.

 

Only £24 a year.

[glennda]

I would recommend Datto appliances - although I doubt the online costs would be in your price range.

[CyberNerd]

I was correcting the person I quoted but I wouldn't use anything as expensive as Amazon for offsite backups. FreeNAS is very good and a simple rsync should surfice.

 

Not so much of a correction, Glacier is more for long-term backups. S3 AWS import is still a viable option.

[dhicks]

I was correcting the person I quoted but I wouldn't use anything as expensive as Amazon for offsite backups.

 

It is still about the cheapest commercial offering, though - around 2p per GB per month for Glacier, around 10p per GB per month for S3, and I think RackSpace was around 7p per GB per month last time I checked. When I look at the purchase and running costs for a 2U server stuffed full of 4TB drives (around £3,000 to buy for 40TB of space, £100 a month to host in a colocation facility) and the amount some people are charging for cloud storage services (some offers I've seen are around a couple of hundred pounds per month per TB) I sometimes wonder why I'm not running my own cloud storage business - 5p a GB per month for 40TB of space (assuming it was all sold, of course) would bring in over £2,000 a month...

[mreevesjones1]

Try using Mozy Pro, data storage prices are cheap, it backs up normal data like home directories, fileservers. It also backs up Exchange servers and sql databases. easy to install and easy to use.

[Darylrese]

Thanks for the suggestions so far guys

 

The only thing i can see being an issue is the SIMS data going offsite and how management / governors will view that.

[Edu-IT]

Where are Mozy servers based?

[glennda]

Where are Mozy servers based?

 

All over the world but the EU datacenter is in Ireland and you are able to specify this.

[Darylrese]

Just had a call from Redstor and they want £10,000 a year!!! I don't think so somehow....

[dhicks]

Just had a call from Redstor and they want £10,000 a year!!!

 

See? The thing is, somebody, somewhere must actually be paying that much money for storage - at that rate the chunk of spare server rack capacity sitting behind me is probably worth several tens of thousands of pounds a month.

[glennda]

See? The thing is, somebody, somewhere must actually be paying that much money for storage - at that rate the chunk of spare server rack capacity sitting behind me is probably worth several tens of thousands of pounds a month.

 

90% of the charges they company provide are the managed backup not the storage. - I havn't worked with redstor but I have worked with the likes of Databarracks.

 

They main costs they have is the availability of having somebody ready 24/7/365 to get your data on a USB and back to you within x number of hours. They also tend to manage the support so they tell you if you have a backup issue and remove that headache.

[ConradJones]

i love the way people try and sell these services as cheaper than D2D/D2T .