Best Backup Software for Disaster Recovery..

[Grommit]

Right..

 

Your DC with the AD, FMSO roles and lets say your main SQL Database on and file server (300gb) has crashed and burned..

 

Which backup software would you have wished you had installed and set up on and what would it have been backed up too.. ?(not SANS)

[FN-GM]

would you have wished

 

Did this happen to you or something?

 

We use Symantec Backup Exec, Most servers they back to a tape drive and some servers they backup to an external hard drive.

[zag]

Symantec Backupexec here as well, it can do AD/system state backups with 1 click. Really useful.

 

The SQL backup is even better as long as you have the SQL backup license, just select the server and click on the database you want to backup, its one click to restore it at any time. Same with exchange stores.

 

For backup media, we simply use an internal hard disk, and 2 External ones. Tapes are dead technology these days imo

Edited January 7, 2008 by zag

[Diello]

BackupExec - Seasoned software that does exactly what you want it to - AD / Exchange / SQL backups are brilliant, effective, and quick - and with the other additions it offers, it's head and tails above the rest.

[Grommit]

BackupExec - Seasoned software that does exactly what you want it to - AD / Exchange / SQL backups are brilliant, effective, and quick - and with the other additions it offers, it's head and tails above the rest.

 

OK.... what if you didn't want to use Backup Exec ? which one then would do a disaster recovery for databases, AD, files, and the rest..

 

As Backup exec does not do disk backup to IP it needs a UNC and I looking for something that does IP

[Norphy]

Commvault, Legato Networker, CA Brightstor are all big names. I'd use any of those over BackupExec. My current place uses Commvault, it seems to be a Dell approved solution. I'm going on a training course in February to learn how to use it.

[torledo]

OK.... what if you didn't want to use Backup Exec ? which one then would do a disaster recovery for databases, AD, files, and the rest..

 

As Backup exec does not do disk backup to IP it needs a UNC and I looking for something that does IP

 

Unfortunately i don't think you can do good d2d backup on the cheap....

 

As mentioned commvault, legato are some of the big names. But they are 3rd and 4th behind the big two in terms of features and seats.... both NBU and TSM are terrific packages for disk and tape backup but cost a pretty penny.

 

TSM is the product i'd wish i had if i needed to recovery from db and file loss.

Whereas NBU's Vault feature is possibly the best backup option on the market...With Vault you can backup/stage to disk and then the software automitaclly duplicates to tape for offsite storage - just a shame it's the most expensive NBU feature there is .

 

IF you can't copy to a remote site you absolutely must have tape in the process...Even if it's only weekly for taking off-site. If you're a single site and you're relying on non-removeable SATA disks for backup you're seriously asking for trouble.

 

Ofcourse d2d replication is another option i'd consider for recovering quickly as it's more space efficient and granular than a traditional Point-in-time snapshot like a nightly backup. But I'd still have tape in the process.

 

A lot of big companies favour d2d backup over CIF/NFS, but the products that do it well are very advanced and likely appliance based rather than software/host based therefore v. expensive becuase they use features like sophisticated de-dupe technology. de-dupe is great for remote site replication becuase it means you don't have to send everything over the link therefore reducing copy times and you can achieve what is in effect excellent compression.

 

Not that familiar with the free stuff that does D2D backup and copy. I think a lot of people use rsync for copy but it's not very sophisticated. Anyone care to shed a light on what's out there and recommendations in this space.

[azrael78]

Looking at these posts, it looks like Symantec NetBackup is a front-runner in schools.

 

We currently use Tapeware on old Tape Drives - I've been told to drag our disaster recovery scheme and backup scheme into the 21st century.

 

So I've put a server up with removable Hard Disks and to do the backup this way (as it's cheaper and faster) - however, backing up the OS's is a pain.

 

So, what I'm looking for is a backup solution that allows backup of SQL, allows disaster recovery (incase a server blows up, we can throw in a CD and have it restore from network) and allows easy backup/restore with some reasonable logging/reporting.

 

Does NetBackup do this with a few extra agents?

I've looked at Acronis Enterprise Server and that does it all but it comes with a very heavy pricetag that management just won't stretch to.

 

Any recommendations?

 

Az

[zag]

Backupexec and Acronis personal is a good combination, just means you have to image to a disk or CD instead

[azrael78]

Backupexec and Acronis personal is a good combination, just means you have to image to a disk or CD instead

 

We did have Veritas BackupExec but management didn't like the price-tag associated with renewals and the fact we had to buy more licenses for servers...

 

Acronis Personal? Never heard of that one, is that suitable for a Server OS backup and handles SQL and bare metal restore?

 

Az

[Norphy]

If your management doesn't like the price of Backup Exec, they're not going to like the price of anything else worth having either.

 

That said, a while ago European Electronique were offering CA BrightStor Arcserve for something like 10% of RRP for educational establishments. It may be worth contacting them and asking if that's still on.

[Grommit]

How is NovaBACKUP ?

[torledo]

If your management doesn't like the price of Backup Exec, they're not going to like the price of anything else worth having either.

 

 

Agreed. If you can't stretch for a couple of extra server licenses for BE some of the other options are well out of you're league. Although commvault do sell a file server edition thru Dell as the galaxy express product which is considerably cheaper than the ent. galaxy product. Think aswell an exc. and sql option may also be available for galaxy express for a few hundred quid. Not sure.

[azrael78]

I'd almost wonder why all this stuff was so expensive if I didn't know that it was essential to have good backup/restore options on high-use services.

 

After beating management down with a 'if we use poor software, then our disaster recovery will be a joke or unusable' line - he's going to get quotes for NetBackup and Acronis with the relevant options because I think he hates the thought of critical servers being down (for a considerable amount of time) rather than spending the small chunk now to get the problem addressed and solved while we have a stable array of servers.

 

Not quite sure what he will go for yet - or whether I will even get a choice in the matter.

 

I've used Acronis Trueimage Workstation with Universal Restore and I find it very easy to use, scheduling works well and the restore options (boot from CD) and restore direct onto hard disks - invaluable - so that's my first choice, I've got nothing against NetBackup - but I didn't realise Symantec still had BackupExec... might be worth checking prices on that as I used Veritas BE before and found that good.

[contink]

Has anyone been looking at the new MS product "System Center Data Protection Manager 2007"?

 

Thought I'd ask as it appeared in my quarterly partnership pack today.

[torledo]

Has anyone been looking at the new MS product "System Center Data Protection Manager 2007"?

 

Thought I'd ask as it appeared in my quarterly partnership pack today.

 

 

my understanding is DPM 2007 is microsoft's attempt at continuous data protection (CDP), it's very new and i haven't had a chance to give it a test drive. I'd imagine there are more features than just CDP but that's the main selling point.

[cjohnsonuk]

We've been told that DPM is about £75 per server and as we have two sites with 100MBps between the two then the continuous data protection seems like a nice thing to have and the option of users being able to restore their own files would be a great benefit. We're about to throw a large amount of disk space at the servers

 

(Axstor iSCSI devices unless anyone has any other recommendations)

 

so we are hoping to be able to do 30 days on disk with archives to tape taken from the backup allowing us to backup during the day when its easier to manage the multitape archives.

 

Anyone got any direct experience of installing /using DPM 07 in a live environment?

 

Chris

[ranj]

Has anyone used Bakbone nevault on Windows servers. I heard that is a good backup soluition.

[torledo]

We've been told that DPM is about £75 per server and as we have two sites with 100MBps between the two then the continuous data protection seems like a nice thing to have and the option of users being able to restore their own files would be a great benefit. We're about to throw a large amount of disk space at the servers

 

(Axstor iSCSI devices unless anyone has any other recommendations)

 

so we are hoping to be able to do 30 days on disk with archives to tape taken from the backup allowing us to backup during the day when its easier to manage the multitape archives.

 

Anyone got any direct experience of installing /using DPM 07 in a live environment?

 

Chris

 

You may want to have a look into how DPM implements CDP....like most software solutions at that price it's probably using near-CDP where snapshots are taken at regular intervals rather than contious replication of new and modified data. Also look how is disk space used and managed with DPM's cdp feature ? while most cdp solutions have clever ways of minimising the amount of storage needed for storing the snapshots/PiT copies how easy and reliable is DPM when restoring from a specific PiT.

 

If you've got two sites seperated by a 100mbps WAN link this gives you a unique opportunity to implement some sort of Disaster Recovery. There are hardware based products in the market that are superb at replicating data to a DR site, and at 100mbps you should see some good performance depending on how you setup you're DR policies. For the cost of an additional license you can get remote mirror features that make storage administration a lot easier.

It makes a lot of sense to setup some sort of d2d between the sites, and offloading to tape.

[alfatec]

Have you had a look at Backup for Workgroups. This is a full software solution which backs up to NAS. It has full open file management which means it fully backs up Active Directory, SQL, Exchange etc using shadow copying. It also does full disaster recovery even to the point of creating a disaster recovery plan for you which gives you full instructions on how to carry it out. Another key point of the software is the mirror capability. It will mirror the main backup to an offsite NAS device, so that if your backup disc goes, you just swap the location to the mirror and you still have a complete backup.

We have 5 servers in our organisation. What we do is put 500Gb lacie drives on each one and Backup for workgroups backups to each drive. We then mirror the contents onto a 1TB Lacie NAS storage off site. One of the main benefits of this system is that there is no restriction on how far back you can restore from. For our students they can backup from the beginning of the academic year, even if they are at the end of the academic year 1 year later.

[Michael]

In my opinion, the best way to evaluate any backup software solution is to simulate a restore. How quickly and effectively can you restore files or get a server back online?

 

I can highly recommend NTBackup. I use it on all 2003 servers. It's fast, reliable, easy to use and it comes complete with Windows (as we all know). As for backup solutions - tape, external hard disk and remote backup should be explored.