Re: Offsite Backup Service + SBS 2003
- From: <wedor>
- Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2007 11:40:57 -0500
Acronis does do incremental back-ups, it does not append them to the
original file but rather stores them as a separate file(s) with a number
appended to the name of the original.
Depending on the data stored the incrementals can be small enough to send
over the internet without taking forever.
"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"
<lanwench@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23n00jZGeHHA.4564@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Jason <Jason@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Yep. The entire contents of the entire server - including online
Exchange backups and system state. It's a huge file if you do it
all at once.
When you say "backup the entire server", what are you referring to,
aside from grabbing each and every file on the machine?
Just that - including the entire contents of the C drive, and so
forth.
Obviously, for a service that charges based on the amount of storage
space you're using, you wouldn't want to store each and every single
file on the C: drive unless it was absolutely critical to restore. A
lot of people have junk on their machines, temporary backup copies
that software support personnel could create, temporary internet
files (even though this can be configured via policies or such to not
store), just loads and loads of junk that is not relevant to
restoring your server.
Sure, but how much space does that actually take up, relatively speaking?
Yes, a full backup in the sense you are speaking about, will
definately restore your system exactly to the point at which your
machine crashed (at least, since the last backup was made).
Yes.
If you missed it, read my other reply to Costas. I am running this
service as a secondary backup solution, to go along with an inhouse
solution.
Sure - just make sure that you set their expectations properly. If you
aren't going to be able to return the entire server to its state as of
that backup time, it isn't going to be useful for disaster recovery. If
all they care about is "a certain subset of data" (whether data files or
Exchange) then that's something else.
Now, given that there is a full backup already (utilizing the built
in SBS 2003 Backup procedure under Server Maintenance), how would it
be possible to archive out just the CRITICAL portions of the server
(necessary to restore Active Directory, Exchange mailboxes,
companyweb and any other important parts of the system I may not
realize at this point) to a file or files that I can archive and
select for backup using my offsite service?
You can run another NTBackup job that just does the bits you want.
System state/AD
Online exchange backup ( Exchange mailboxes & PFs) & Exchange transaction
log folders
IIS folder(s)
User data folders
...whatever you *want* to be able to restore.
As Costas recommended, you should test your DR procedures to make sure
what you're doing works - and that you know how to do it.
You might also look into Acronis - their server product - and see whether
it can do differential image backups. They make nice software.
I want to be able to grab the critical data, needed to restore
incase of failure,
Restore *what* though? Word documents, etc., are easy. :)
and then basically FTP that data offsite.
Yep - but that could take ages.
If there were a way to archive just incremental changes to the server
each day, that would be even better! Somehow I doubt there is
functionality for this in SBS 2003...
You can use incremental/differential backups in NTBackup if you use a
batch file, I believe - I just never use that.
My client program is pretty basic. Simple file selection only in a
scheduled job, no agent running to access services.
That works fine for just plain files, but not for a domain controller or
Exchange server, etc.
That's why I'm
trying to find out if there's a proper way to archive critical data
to a file or files, so that data can be selected and transmitted
offsite.
Try a test & see what you think. Unless you've both got really fast
connections to the internet (and the data footprint/file size isn't
that huge) it's probably going to be pretty painful.
I've been pushing the 3.6GB ntbackup archive, containing those items I
initially listed, across a T1 for a while now. It runs well enough
each night, taking about 4.5hrs to upload (3.6GB does not include the
incremental changes to User Shared Folders). In all, the total data
amount usually gets compressed to around 1.8GB before transmit).
Once we get proper procedure for what I'm trying to do here, THEN
we'll talk about testing the restore and possible procedure for that
;P
I have to know what to backup using this method, first, before I can
test it out and see how it goes.
.
- References:
- Re: Offsite Backup Service + SBS 2003
- From: Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]
- Re: Offsite Backup Service + SBS 2003
- From: Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]
- Re: Offsite Backup Service + SBS 2003
- From: Jason
- Re: Offsite Backup Service + SBS 2003
- From: Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]
- Re: Offsite Backup Service + SBS 2003
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