Cloud backup providers

[mikeprice]

After the incident in West Sussex (and again - good luck to all involved) I am predicting an inquiry from SMT about how we would cope

 

hence I would like to investigate soem form of fire proof backup solution

 

Obviously tapes would be one - but a bit old fashioned and manual (I remember having the offsite backup for a major company in my car boot for several years!)

 

So cloud backup seems to be the way forward so I was wondering if 'you lot' could let me4 know wtaht to try and what to avoid

 

We would probably only really want 1Tb - and once a week would be OK

 

messages from providers would be of interst as well

 

TIA

 

Mike

[6Foot2]

Our backup strategy: FMS server and data backed up each night to an off-site location managed by our LEA.

 

Other servers/data: Backed up locally every three hours during the school day and every four hours at other times to a server in the server room. This is then replicated to a second server remote from the server room but still on site.

 

The rationale is: If the server room is damaged we still have the data backed up in the remote (on site) location.

 

If the remote (on site) backup location is damaged we can work on with the single backup server until we can get the second server up and running again.

 

If both the server room backup and the remote (on site) backup servers are not working for some reason, and we have lost an operational network the situation is so bad that the school will be closed. During the closure, we will develop a recovery plan for the school and the network.

 

Note: This is not the plan I wanted to implement.

 

[mikeprice]

The idea about an LEA hosted off site backup is interesting - I will investigate whether ours would do this

 

We already have an on-site backup remote from the server but as it is all one building.............

[CHR1S]

LEA offsite backup for MIS and some user areas.

Replicas for all VM's and a dedicated box for VM backups

DFS on all critical shares with multiple physical endpoints.

Google drive sync for all staff and shared areas.

 

Edit - If I lose the entire network to a fire or a substantial amount of it then rebuilding a few DCs and restoring backups are the least of my worries.

Edited August 23, 2016 by CHR1S

[Michael]

I'd definitely have a look at Azure Backup. I'm running it at larger sites.

 

The main disadvantage of LA remote backup solutions is the retention policy - it's far lower than some of the big players and typically ends up more expensive the more data you backup over time.

[pete]

I'd definitely have a look at Azure Backup. I'm running it at larger sites.

 

Do you mind letting on how much is that costing you, for how much data and how frequently are you pushing data up?

 

Are you using that as primary backup or a secondary store that you send already-backed-up archives to?

[NotSoFast]

Google drive sync for all staff and shared areas.

 

Is this synced by individual account or with a single 'backup' user?

[Michael]

Do you mind letting on how much is that costing you, for how much data and how frequently are you pushing data up?

 

Are you using that as primary backup or a secondary store that you send already-backed-up archives to?

 

For something in the region of 300GB it's coming to £14 a month, or there abouts. This is for 3 scheduled increments per day, working on a retention policy of 365 days.

 

I think eventually this'll be the primary backup. I see no reason for it not to be.

[CHR1S]

Is this synced by individual account or with a single 'backup' user?

 

I sync the root of each area via different accounts using https://www.insynchq.com/ then share the user areas inside manually to each individual person or group.

Not a huge pain to set up for the extra backup you get as google saves different versions of each file and there is vault too.

Its not my primary method of backing up but its my most convenient.

[Michael]

Another consideration for remote backup is the number of copies made - Microsoft Azure overall can make 6 copies per incremental backup. 3 in a primary location and 3 in a secondary location. Do we all think LAs do this? Very unlikely, the resources and expertise required just wouldn't make sense, whereas for global operating giants like Microsoft it does as you have a much wider target audience.

[Achandler]

We have a DPM server completely offsite at our ISPs datacentre. It's our server so so it backs up everything, keeps DCs for 7 days, Databases for 30 days and home drives for 30 days. Have DC dumps put onto it as well because of DPM needing AD.

 

Onsite we have a split SAN, with hosts in each location but the buidling at linked so i theory a fire (or more likely the water from the hoses) could hit both parts hence offsite.

[Lonix]

I sync the root of each area via different accounts using https://www.insynchq.com/ then share the user areas inside manually to each individual person or group.

Not a huge pain to set up for the extra backup you get as google saves different versions of each file and there is vault too.

Its not my primary method of backing up but its my most convenient.

 

How much storage does this provide? Looking at it now, doesn't quite show everything?

 

Might have to look at the trial.

 

Really all I'm looking for is an offsite backup that doesn't have to be a ton but just enough to keep a single copy at the weekend. With perhaps least amount of work

[CHR1S]

How much storage does this provide? Looking at it now, doesn't quite show everything?

 

Might have to look at the trial.

 

Really all I'm looking for is an offsite backup that doesn't have to be a ton but just enough to keep a single copy at the weekend. With perhaps least amount of work

 

GAFE is unlimited space, so erm.... unlimited haha.

If I need something backed up I just copy it to a directory thats synced and its done as quick as my 100mb connection allows.

[jmak]

You might also want to consider how long it would take you to recover the data. Multiple TBs over even quite a quick line would take a while. Our primary backup is to the LA and part of my plan is that I could jump in the car with a spare HDD and grab a copy of the whole lot in an hour or so.

 

Edit: just realised that I've replied to a thread which has been inactive for a month. Using the android App and when I clicked on a notification it randomly took me to Cloud Services Stickies instead of What's New. Sorry...

Edited September 26, 2016 by jmak

[Oaktech]

Currently I have onsite backups provided by one of these:

 

https://iosafe.com/store/products-soloPRO-buy

 

which is then script XCopied to an offsite location provided by our ISP. our backup is simple windows server backup, but by using several XCopy scripts, it becomes one nightly onsite backup, 1 offsite a week stored for 30 days and 7 offsite incrementals. The last backup of the week becomes the one that is stored for 30 days.

 

Were looking into Azure, but at the moment it's unnecessarily expensive compared to what we have with the ISP. When we convert to an academy we will probably go in with our trust's Azure backup. It also helps, that the ISP's data centre is close enough that in a dire emergency I could take a USB HDD down there and retrieve the backup physically.