How do you do: Offsite disaster recovery backup?

[dayzd]

I can only imagine this has been asked before, so please kick me in the right direction if I've not looked hard enough!

 

Background

At present, I use Windows Server Backup to backup all my servers. No, it isn't all that great, but it works and is free. Daily backups are done locally in the same physical network cab the servers live in, and weekly disaster recovery backups are made to a NAS device stored in a separate office over the road from our main building. This office is on the same LAN, connected via fibre.

 

It has been decided (in the interests of cost reduction, of course) that said office over the road will be closed. Unfortunately for me, then, I will no longer have any geographical redundancy in my backup plan. Boo!

 

Question

In the same situation, what would you guys look in to doing to get back some redundancy? I've hit a mental block and can only come up with one or two ideas to consider so far. Can you suggest anything beyond:

 

• Cloud backup
  
• DPM box in house backed up by second remote DPM box
  
• Something else
  

 

I'm not a huge fan of cloud solutions, as I prefer to be hands-on. Really though, my biggest concerns are the level of control I'd have and being sure the data is kept within the UK. I have a support contract with a company who I know resell Datto solutions. I'm not keen on their offering though, as they mentioned I'd have limited access to it. Does anyone have any experience using Datto backup?

 

I gather that the wholesale backup of a DPM box to another one is supported, but I can only imagine this is complicated and costly. And I'd have to find somewhere to securely run the remote box. I presume I could do the same with another backup solution if I wanted, not just DPM.

 

Can anyone throw out any other ideas that might be worth looking at? I know in reality, a cloud solution is probably going to offer the best value for money. Does anyone have any recommendations?

 

Thanks

[dayzd]

I can only imagine this has been asked before, so please kick me in the right direction if I've not looked hard enough!

 

Background

At present, I use Windows Server Backup to backup all my servers. No, it isn't all that great, but it works and is free. Daily backups are done locally in the same physical network cab the servers live in, and weekly disaster recovery backups are made to a NAS device stored in a separate office over the road from our main building. This office is on the same LAN, connected via fibre.

 

It has been decided (in the interests of cost reduction, of course) that said office over the road will be closed. Unfortunately for me, then, I will no longer have any geographical redundancy in my backup plan. Boo!

 

Question

In the same situation, what would you guys look in to doing to get back some redundancy? I've hit a mental block and can only come up with one or two ideas to consider so far. Can you suggest anything beyond:

 

• Cloud backup
  
• DPM box in house backed up by second remote DPM box
  
• Something else
  

 

I'm not a huge fan of cloud solutions, as I prefer to be hands-on. Really though, my biggest concerns are the level of control I'd have and being sure the data is kept within the UK. I have a support contract with a company who I know resell Datto solutions. I'm not keen on their offering though, as they mentioned I'd have limited access to it. Does anyone have any experience using Datto backup?

 

I gather that the wholesale backup of a DPM box to another one is supported, but I can only imagine this is complicated and costly. And I'd have to find somewhere to securely run the remote box. I presume I could do the same with another backup solution if I wanted, not just DPM.

 

Can anyone throw out any other ideas that might be worth looking at? I know in reality, a cloud solution is probably going to offer the best value for money. Does anyone have any recommendations?

 

Thanks

[Blue_Cookeh]

Amazon Glacier is very cheap to back up to (but quite expensive once or if you ever need to pull data from) if you're looking at cloud options. We're lucky in that we're gaining a new building so I'll be using DPM to backup to a Synology NAS, which will then replicate to another Synology NAS in another building.

 

Another option I began exploring before our building work was having a Wireless P2P link between us and another school a couple of miles away (line of sight), which would have given us a good few hundred Mbps into a dedicated VLAN on their network and vice versa, since we only have 25Mbps FTTC up here.

 

Realistically I found Windows Server Backup to be very reliable, my main issues have been storage and finding a geographically redundant backup with a fast enough connection out.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Blue_Cookeh

[dayzd]

I quite like the idea of using Synology boxes to replicate backups... I've never used one, so I didn't realise they had that feature.

I also like the notion of using line-of-site wireless to somewhere else. I should probably think about which of our neighbouring businesses might be friendly enough to help out!

[Andycat]

We're lucky, as we have a building across the road. So we've just fibred to it (the bus route took some organising etc) so we do a backup to a separate block, then that backs up across the road. So offsite, literally, but still all in our control and "free".

[Andycat]

We're lucky, as we have a building across the road. So we've just fibred to it (the bus route took some organising etc) so we do a backup to a separate block, then that backs up across the road. So offsite, literally, but still all in our control and "free".

[elsiegee40]

Have you seen this?

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/general-chat/173744-someone-fancied-brand-new-network-fire-west-sussex-school.html

 

Great advert for Redstor

[elsiegee40]

Have you seen this?

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/general-chat/173744-someone-fancied-brand-new-network-fire-west-sussex-school.html

 

Great advert for Redstor

[Ephelyon]

We back up using Veeam Replica to redundant server at another school on the same PSN network a few miles away from us. Because it's all the same network, we could get straight through to them once County had made the necessary NAT/routing changes. Completely free!

 

They are in a position to reciprocate back to us but have not chosen to do so thus far.

[Ephelyon]

We back up using Veeam Replica to redundant server at another school on the same PSN network a few miles away from us. Because it's all the same network, we could get straight through to them once County had made the necessary NAT/routing changes. Completely free!

 

They are in a position to reciprocate back to us but have not chosen to do so thus far.

[Cazale]

Pair with a local (similar sized) school and backup to each other. We have 3 schools, they back up to themselves and each other (daily local backup, each school backs up to another assigned school every 2 days, then once a month all the schools backup to to the "other" school over a weekend).

 

Works quite well as they have 3 backups, including 2 offsite each.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Cazale

[Cazale]

Pair with a local (similar sized) school and backup to each other. We have 3 schools, they back up to themselves and each other (daily local backup, each school backs up to another assigned school every 2 days, then once a month all the schools backup to to the "other" school over a weekend).

 

Works quite well as they have 3 backups, including 2 offsite each.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Cazale

[Rob_D]

We use DPM with a weekly "tape" backup to a removable HDD that goes in a fireproof safe as far away from the DPM server as it can be and still be inside.

 

If you can't get proper off-site, what about backing up to something like

?

[Rob_D]

We use DPM with a weekly "tape" backup to a removable HDD that goes in a fireproof safe as far away from the DPM server as it can be and still be inside.

 

If you can't get proper off-site, what about backing up to something like

?

[dayzd]

We're lucky, as we have a building across the road. So we've just fibred to it (the bus route took some organising etc) so we do a backup to a separate block, then that backs up across the road. So offsite, literally, but still all in our control and "free".

 

That's pretty much the setup I'm about to lose :-(

 

We use DPM with a weekly "tape" backup to a removable HDD that goes in a fireproof safe as far away from the DPM server as it can be and still be inside.

 

If you can't get proper off-site, what about backing up to something like

?

 

I hadn't considered fireproof anything so far. That's an interesting option... Thanks for the suggestion!