Lux Interior asks:
"Help! I am the ad-hoc computer guy in a small satellite office of a larger company. We have no CIO, no IT department, and no policies whatsoever as regards data retention or backup. Therefore, a lot of company property exists one place-- on individual hard drives. The office is made of almost entirely of rudimentary users, on WIN98 and 2000 machines, who never, ever, back up any company information. Has anyone out there had experiences in a small-office setting with: changing users' behavior in regards to managing their data; setting up best practices for backing up information properly; and making sure that the most computer-apathetic users comply with what you've put in place?" Sometimes the best way to make users conform to policy is to not give them a choice in the first place. Automated backup systems on each workstation can go a long way in helping this. Which software packages have such functionality (the more unobtrusive, the better)?
"Several weeks ago we lost six years' worth of extremely important data on current and continuing projects that not even a data recovery service could get back. As a consequence, it is now my job to make sure this doesn't happen again. I have an offsite data storage service retained, but now, how do I get people to back up their files to our file server so I can back up our data from one location? (Also, having the data backed up on our file server of course means that most inadvertent deletions can quickly be fixed in-house).
This is all taking place in a Windows environment, with an NT 4.0 file server, and I am far from an experienced Sysadmin.
Fun, Fun, Fun.
Any input from slashdot readers would be great, and save me much dyspepsia, insomnia, and general hassle."
Slashdot Mirror
that'll teach them to backup! BOFH!
I wouldn't call this "easy" but there's plenty of sites that should have instructions on re-usering people to log on to the fileserver as a domain server and resetting their my documents folders to be on the file server... then it's just going around and mopping up. Then you back up the file server and tell people if it's not in 'my documents' then it's gone gone gone and its their fault.
Automating backups on workstations, very bad, very difficult. For example, getting people to not turn them off, or even turn off a power bar (wake on lan doesn't work so good in such a situation.) What you do, if you're on NT, is set your system policies so that my documents, all that stuff, is on the server, in their home share. Tell them to put everything on home share. Tell them that anything that's on their hard drive, and lost, will be their responsibility. Explain why they need a central data repository. MAKE DAMN SURE YOUR BACKUPS WORK, OR YOU'LL LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT. Then, if need be, pick a sacrifical lamb. Back up their harddrive, then engineer a 'hard disk failure.' Make sure something important was there, that wasn't properly placed onto the fileserver. This'll drive the point home.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
If the user doesn't want to be bothered backing up their data, make them sign a waiver absolving you of responsibility when (not IF) disaster strikes and s/he loses vital data. At least then, when they're angry and upset and looking for a chump to take the fall for their stupidity, you've got a convenient ass-cover with their autograph on it, and it won't cost you your job. :-)
~Philly
Create a network drive that everyone can use, H:, the home directory. Usually already set up on networks, but whatever. Tell people that any work related stuff that isn't saved to the H: drive will be deleted.
Warn them a week in advance, warn them a day in advance.
Then, in the middle of the night, format everyone's machines and stick fresh OS installs on all of them. If possible, ghost one machine's fresh install and use it everywhere. Then, the only backup you have to worry about is the H: drive.
If anyone ever has a computer problem, just reghost their drive, removing whatever pointless software (screen savers, comet cursor, kazaa, etc) that got installed and caused the problem.
Minimal hassle for you, easy backups, and everyone will fear you.
[o]_O
I think the easiest thing to do would be try to do it yourself remotely. Under Windows 2000, you can access the administrative share as \\machinename\c$ , so map those drives to some server somewhere(preferably one with lots of disk space), and have it auto-backup those computers at midnight(by just pulling the files right off the harddrives of those machines). It's not too tough to make Windows 98 share files so only the admin can use the share, just make sure you set up the right access-lists on your routers to stop the netbios-over-ip traffic from leaking onto the internet. No problem -- in theory at least, I'm sure there are implementation hassles.
It's been a long time.
Build yourself a samba server on your favourite brand of UNIX (I prefer Freebsd, many don't). Attach a tape drive and use Amanda as your backup program. Get them all accounts on this machine and get them used to using their "Z:" drive for everything. Then everyone has a daily backup and you are in control - which helps a lot when dealing with people less technically competent than you.
Policy doesn't work until something really bad happens and someone with real power in the company says "Do it or you're fired".
I've been in this situation with dozens of companies, and policy only takes root when error rears its ugly head.
Sometimes the errors cost headaches, sometimes they cost you a lawsuit.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
One policy that I have seen many time is if the data is not backed up to the Network (ie server), then it is not your (you, the IT guy) responsibility if it is lost.
but be ready to install disk quotas. You'll be suprised at the number of twinks who will backup his/her ENTIRE C drive.
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
We have a shell script cron'd to go off every night that mounts users hard drive's via smb, then backs them up with tar to a raid. Then we archive those to tape for an offsite backup. The raid backup is great because when I get a "I just deleted my spreadsheet" call I can have it back in a few minutes. Your only worry is making sure they have there c$ "administrative" share available for your data syphon. You could even get snazzy with it and make a web interface with php/apache like we did, but were a bit larger operation and have lUsers using the system.
edge
I deal with a lot of real estate agents and I have yet to find a nice complete backup system for under $500. It needs to be automated and require little to no technical knowledge. (Flipping CDs is too complex for them. They want something they don't have to touch.)
Does such a system exist?
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
If enough users are Windows 2000, format the drives as NTFS and lock them down. Don't allow them to write files to their own directories. Obviously, some concessions will have to be made for application use, but they probably won't find their way to the few directories where they could theoritically save files. Give all users mapped network drives, both personal and shared, such as H for their home drive and S as a departmental drive, K as a common drive, etc. Again with 2000, point their My Documents folder to their H drive, making them save stuff to the network without realizing it.
Now, get a good back-up scheme on your file server, which I assume you already have, and you won't have anymore data loss problems. It also removes accountability from you. You manage the computer systems. Tell users that IT is simply not responsible for data lost off their local HDs. If they ignore you and then lose data, shrug your shoulders and point to IS policy. That'll learn 'em and learn 'em fast.
Linus once said "Real men don't use backups. They upload everything to an FTP site and everyone mirrors them." (According to Lars...)
Seriously, SMBtar is a wonderful tool, just require them to share out important directories. You can do the same thing using a simple shell script. That is what I have done in the past. This can then be stored on tape, hdd on a major server, etc.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
In a situation like that, you're probably going to find that the users are so accustomed to keeping data on their hard drives that they simply won't back anything up on their own. Most will simply refuse to do it.
Even more unfortunately, an automated backup system probably won't help either. With a mixed environment like that, you're going to find that most users have data scattered all over their hard drives, making it virtually impossible to backup anything less than the entire drive. Not a good idea if you're dealing with any more than 5 to 10 users.
The best idea in this case would probably be along the lines of having each individual user move all their important files into one directory tree. Don't even tell them it's for the purpose of backing up, because then they probably won't do it. Make up some story about viruses destroying random data, and tell them that this is part of a prevention method. It sounds totally idiotic, but they'll believe it...instilling fear is usually the best way to go. Once they've moved everything, make sure they know to keep all their data files in that same directory tree from then on, and set up a scheduled backup on each machine - hopefully to a networked tape library or network drive of some sort.
Give this a few months, and get them used to keeping their data in a very specific place, and then start giving them network storage space to use instead. It will make the backup process a lot easier, and you'll be able to do it daily instead of once every week or so.
In any case, you have to approach this very SLOWLY, or you'll freak them out and they won't be any help at all. Baby steps, man...baby steps.
Changing people's philosphy on where to store data goes a long way.
We have a server with a large-enough tape drive to back up users' data. We then encourage people EXTREMELY to save important data to their personal LAN Drive, and eeinforce the idea that the Hard Drive should be considered expendible. No excuses, no tears.
We then back up the data nightly and rotate tapes daily during the work week (M-T-W-TH, and Weekly Friday Tapes, with the Last Friday of the Month going on rotating Monthly Tapes.
It a bit of habit-breaking for people used to saving everything to C-Drive, but a little Pavlovian experience of "Ohmigosh, my file is gone!/Oh wow, you got my file back!" will reinforce people that Hard Drives Are Bad/LAN Drive is Good.
You can even reinforce the idea with encouraging people backing up files on floppies/CD R/W Drives.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
So, you have two options: (1) If you have reasonablu fast network connections, take the choice away and install automated workstation-to-server software that runs every night. This won't work for roaming laptop users though. (2) Hold a series of "computer training classes". Say 4 or 5 half-hour classes where you teach e-mail ettiqute, tips and tricks, Internet searching, that sort of thing. Make them mandatory (you can usually finagle this through the HR or Training group of the parent org). At one of the classes, discuss backup, then pull out a form stating "I have attended the backup class and understand the consequences of failing to back up my work. My department and I accept full responsibility for failing to use backup tools provided". Require them to sign and turn it in (again, HR and Training will usually help with this). Send copies to the department heads.
That won't prevent data loss (or even the loss of your job if something goes wrong!), but it will help somewhat and also get at least some people thinking.
sPh
Come on, this is absurd. If the sysadmin can't figure how to backup user data, its time to switch up the sysadmin.
put a clause in the employment contract "You must make use of the source respository and backup systems we provide or you're fired." ;)
We used to have the same thing in my office, and I was in the same position. We setup a network file server with lots of hard drive space, and forced users to logon to the domain. Then we secretly replaced their hard drive with 4 gig versons, so there wasn't much room for them to be saving on. And then we setup a nightly backup of that entire server. Withing 2 weeks, pretty much everyone had their stuff on the network, and as an added side effect, we came up with a naming convention for saving client data, and all client data is saved in the same place now, making finding info much easier and much more efficient. Every user also has a don't ask, don't tell, personal folder that only they (except me, of course) have access to. For personal stuff, like docs, pictures of family, mp3's, pr0n, you name it, they got it...
Hope this helps
Th
If you need periodic complete system backups get some removable hard drive bays, some 100GB disks and Mondo
Yep, the last small company I worked at had the same problem.
.bat file which could be placed in Windows Task Scheduler to run the program as need be to transfer all the data to our backup drive, which was mapped as a network drive in Windows. The developer even added client-side zip compression to make it nice and tidy.
The way we fixed it was to have one of our developers write a small Windows prog for us (I think in Visual Basic?) that had a standard Windows Explorer interface to select folders and such to be backed up, then wrote a small
I think it took him about 5-6 hours to create the program. It was great, I was very grateful to have a developer who knew something about writing small programs for Windows.
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
Then become the data gestapo and slowly, kindly, patiently drill it into their head to always save things into "My documents." If they ask you to help them with their computer, and you see files that should be in the "My docs" folder, move them there, after they get used to always loading stuff from there, they will get used to saving there too.
The key is patience and Persistence. Practice your waitress smile! ;)
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Lux Interior is a IT manager now?
Damm last time i saw him he was practically swallowing a microphone mumbling something about being a human-fly
This is not a technical problem, this is mainly a behavioral and cultural issue.
Users aren't going to do *anything* they don't prefer to do, and you have no way of compelling them to do the "right" thing. The post about domain logons and establishing "My Documents" on the network server is excellent, but the users could still save everything on their C: drive. (They probably will because a network share is usually slower than the local hard drive, and they're used to using C:.)
My recommendation would be to gain and establish management support for a backup policy. To do this, you will have to demonstrate to management the risks inherent in not compelling users to back up their data - such as loss of operational data, client lists, engineering data, etc.
Ideally, management would issue an edict that specified that employees were responsible for cooperating with your backup regimen.
Short of this, it ain't gonna happen, because users are basically "stupid". (Defined as shortsighted, unable to see the big picture, unable to imagine loss of data, etc.) And without a real enforceable policy with disciplinary measures in place, they are going to skirt the policy, count on it.
Check out Retrospect by Dantz software. We use it for a mixed network of Macs & PC's. Backup occurs automatically from all workstations at administrator defined times. This way, you don't have to "teach" everone to store to a network drive or anything like that.
downsides of the passive approach...
;)
you may get fired for not stopping the problem before the users learn this lesson
Use Retrospect from Dantz. Cross-platform, unattended, client backup and restore, saved my ass a couple of times - your users will never notice.
You buy a TAPE DRIVE. Do not buy a cd-rw. Buy TAPE. Get DDS-3 dat, or VXA, or AIT, or DLT. Make your life easy, buy an autoloader. Make sure retrospect supports it (they have a list). Buy enough tape capacity to back up all the files on all the hard drives without you having to sit and change tapes for hours on end. Retrospect will automate the entire deal so you just need to be there to pick up the pay check.
Someone will give you grief about the cost of tape drive. Tell them to FUCK OFF. Tape drives are CHEAP compared to how much it'll cost your company to LOSE DATA. Buy LOTS of tapes.
With this, you back up EVERYTHING. The first part of a new backup is a pain, but from then on in Retrospect will just back up the changed files, making life very easy. Use multiple tape sets and rotate so you always keep a couple of good backups around.
I can't stress this enough, back up EVERYTHING. Do not say "I will only back up 'my documents'". People save their files all over the damned place and never know where they are. They delete stupid system files they didn't know what they were for. Once you're over the pain of the first full backup, which can take a couple of days depending on the size of your place it's easy and the incrementals are fast. And you can do DISASTER RECOVERY. As in "my hard drive crashed and I lost everything, please restore my computer to the way it was". You can point, click, blast everything onto a new drive in the machine and the machine runs exactly as it used to.
Do not wait for disaster to happen to try this, after you get a backup under your belt. Go through the restore procedure. Get another hard drive and practise doing complete system restores so that you can do it in your sleep when your CEO calls you at 2am to find his deleted girlie pictures.
If you can do this, your cow-orkers will love you. Women will love you. Men will want to BE you.
Dramatic maybe, but I'm a damned happy user of Retrospect for years and it has saved my ass more times than I can count. There are other products (Backup Exec) but I have not used them, and so I cannot vouch for them. I use Retrospect every day.
Get a tape drive and Retrospect from Dantz. If you only have one NT server, you can get Retrospect Workgroup; otherwise, you'll need Retrospect Server. You install the client software on each workstation or server you want to back up, and install the server software on the machine with the tape drive. Then you just activate all the clients, create a couple backup scripts, and change the tape every night before you leave. All this is really simple to administer because Retrospect was originally designed and written for the Macintosh. It's also fairly inexpensive, at least compared to (a) the cost of your time trying to roll your own backup solution and (b) the other backup systems on the market (which are often harder to administer and less functional).
Retrospect can easily be configured to yell at users that haven't been backed up in a certain amount of time, to either back up their entire machine or just a part of it, etc. You'll still have to get users to leave their computers on, but that'll be the extent of it.
I prefer whole-machine backups; everywhere I've used Retrospect, that's what we've done. Retrospect is smart, so it won't back up 10 copies of an identical file just because each one is on a different computer. And Retrospect also does incremental backups out of the box, so you're only backing up what changed *and* you can restore a machine to exactly the state it was at at the time of any given backup.
Sorry for the commercial, but I've been using Retrospect for my own network for 6 years now and have done work for shops that use it for 9, and I have yet to see a better backup solution.
Ummm... there's about three different ways to do it (well):
1. Map My Documents to a remote share on your file server, backup that drive, and setup policies so that data can't get saved locally.
2. Tell the users that local data may be deleted at any time, and they're supposed to use the space you setup at \\file_server\home_directories. Have a nice long meeting drilling in the point, then remind them the day before (do it in the morning and right after lunch) that you'll be deleting local files overnight. Do a fresh install of your OS of choice, configure it to access the home directory of whatever user is logged in, then ghost it over. This has the advantage that any computer is sufficient for the user's needs, as every computer is identically configured.
3. This is the least intrusive, and thus probably best. But I didn't see it mentioned yet (browsing at +1), so thought I'd say it. Most Windows machines share their drives out by default under administrative names... \\computer_name\c$, \\computer_name\d$, etc. You may need to configure Win98 to share out its drives, but thats trivial. Have a network backup server that just backs up the contents of each of these shares in turn. The users never even need to know that you did it, until something bad happens
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
I worked at a place where some jackass wasn't backing up the server with the source code repository -- THAT was a big deal. But I don't consider losing 6 years worth of email any great loss. Was the stuff from 6 years ago really that important?
Only by losing everything are we free to do anything. -- Tyler Durden
I would set up the system so that people can make it work and tell people clearly how to use it (as some have said, setting "My Documents" to be on a server is a good idea). From that point on, it's darwinism -- those who don't care (like me) or can't grok it will lost data and those who do can save themselves.
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
Or maybe: This job is effing impossible unless they let me change out the users, and I fear I'll get canned when they screw up and lose critical data again...
(a) Fool them, or,
(b) Scare them
But you sure as hell can't trust them. They're users, remember? It ends up being akin to herding some sort of animal. Usually cats. Although I've heard it called a goat rodeo as well.
So, take route (a): re-map all writable directories to the server and lock down the rest. Or take route (b): secretly back up a drive and then crash it to put the fear of [insert deity of choice (BOFH is a deity)] in them.
Not saying anything anyone else didn't, just trying to conglomerate all the reasons and routes in one post.
Do not touch -Willie
Central File Server
Give them all a pretty icon on the desktop to their own folder on a central file server. Name it "My Documents" or something. Tell them to copy all their important files to it, and to save all their work to this folder in the future. Pull a little BOFH a week later by swaping the hard drive of some guy in marketing with a defective one. If he backed up his files send out an email praising him, and if not send out an email making an example of him and tell him off about how many hours you had to screw around with the ACME hard drive utiltiy to get his files back.
bash-2.04$
bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
Not fair, but that is what will happen. You may lose your job as a result, NOT the guy who failed to back up. And there may be some justice in that as well if you think about it.
sPh
SuiteSisterMary:
MAKE DAMN SURE YOUR BACKUPS WORK, OR YOU'LL LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT.
Speaking as a former idiot *koff*, that goes without saying.
Any backup system should be tested and shaken-down to verify that data is recoverable. (Then again, any good autobackup system should have a Verify Mode, and a log of the backup to review the morning after.)
The amount of blood, sweat, toil, tears, and non-comped off hours will be worth it.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Twoflower
--
Twoflower
I completely agree, smbtar functions wondefully in our office, however:
The biggest win in securing office data in our office has been the introduction of a samba server with a RAID-ed network disk. Since introduction of this availablility, all our geologists (Hah!) have merged their data on it without questions or pointers.
The availability of secure, large network space has led to a proper self-maintaining archiving system on the network disk, leaving me only to do continuity checking on the server and doing regular backups of the server, not the workstations.
Also our colleagues now realize that when they loose data on a workstation, it is their own fault. Most of them only work local on large files, and create numerous backups before fiddling with them.
The fact they all have accepted and integrated this scheme in our network suggests to me you should not force them, merely offer them a better alternative should convince them.
It is not an IT responsibility to make sure that business users are saving their data to a network drive that is backed up. Your only responsibility is to provide the network space, make sure everyone can access it, make sure the backups work, and notify the business users as to the risk of not saving things to this location.
It's up to the owners of critical data to make sure that critical documents and their revisions are being saved to a Network drive and not "C:\My Documents"
-josh
Bart said that.
We know Ralph is "special". Ralph knows Ralph is "special". somehow I don't think he'd be too shocked if he were to fail english.
It's been a long time.
Before I took over this network there were no home directories and no workstation backup. Since then I've implemented home dirs with quotas. But, most users still won't use them. I send out reminders occasionally.
The only people that use them are people data important enough that they know they'll get in a LOT of trouble should it go away, and people that have lost data before. The average person still doesn't save their documents and data until something bad happens. I've done all I can do, the rest is up to them. They aren't children and we've explained the risks. I've had Directors lose very critical data and my boss and the CIO have always said "Too bad, you told everyone where to put the data to be backed up. Their own fault.".
You're going to hear many comments saying the same thing, "set them up to use the file server for storage." Here are a few things to consider with that central file server:
Set up the file server nicely (if possible) in the first place. I would recommend an inexpensive Promise IDE RAID (they're cheap, fast, and reasonably reliable). The number of drives will determine what kind of RAID strategy you'll take, but be sure to include redundancy in the hard drives themselves.
Make sure permissions are set properly. Set up a user for each workstation to access their files on the central server.
Disable all unnecessary services on the file server. Install the latest service pack and hotfix packages. A good virus scan program will be helpful as well, and perhaps a software firewall if you don't have another solution implemented.
Good luck.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
In fact, take a HUGE amount of liquid nitrogen. Pump it into the ground, below the bedrock, with as much force as possible. Then, when hell freezes over, users might start backing up their own data.
:-)
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
It is the only way... Have users data automagically backed up from a central site... Say you will backup everything under some directory, and just do it. Then train your users to use that directory to save their important work.
Make sure you can restore systems from what is available in that directory though, all the backups in the world don't do a bit of good if you can't do a restore afterwards
My general strategy would be similar, EXCEPT for the CEO. Just backup his data after he goes home, and compliment him on how well he's backing stuff up. Then when everyone complains about backing up, he'll well - back you up - so to speak.
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
You mean like this:
? That's from Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, Act IV Scene 3.
SimCity.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Send out a document, get everyone to read it and sign it. Show them how to store their data in an area that will be backed up. Let them know that any data they do not store there will NOT be backed up. And let them know that when their hard drives crash, it is THEIR responsibility if they have lost any data.
Of course, you'll need management buy-in for this. I must say, though, that it is kind of a shame that Windows makes this difficult. At the university I attended, all the computing science machines mounted their home directories from one of several file servers. Those file servers were religiously backed up and so the loss of any individual workstation was entirely unimportant.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/amanda-win32/
Free backups, as long as you have a tape drive and backup server of some sort.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Considering how hectic things are going, I'm sure a call to your local BSA hit squad would guarantee a quick response to all your backup software needs and more! They will insure a plan that you have plenty of boxed software with licenses at each computer. Problems enforcing backups? No problem, the BSA will come in with police, search warrants, complete with guns and make sure every computer is up to par with standards!
Call your friendly BSA today for a complete backup audit! Vaseline(tm) optional.
I would advise against a waiver. Its likely the users would complain to this guy's boss and get him trouble. Users=lusers and they want to have someone to point there fingers at when things fail. They want there problems solved by someone else and if shit happens THEN ITS THE HELP DESK GUYS FAULT AND IF HE/SHE CAN"T GET IT BACK THEN FIRE THEM! I use to do helpdesk and it was the shortest job I have ever had. The network goes down due to a miss configured router=my fault, user unplugs lan hub underneath desk for a lamp causes her boss to unaccess her mission critical project due in 1 hour=my fault, user's hard drive fails and she never backs it up and co-worker screws up backups= my fault and she calls my bosses boss and gets me fired even though I didn't fuck with the server tapes! This happened 2 years ago and I am still very angry over this because I couldn't fin another IT job before the .bomb .
:-)
Anyway here is a more non confrontational method. Just setup a user policy and have it downloaded automatically when each user logs in. In that policy map the users default drive on the server. Make sure the users name is on each subfolder on the servers main backup folder. This will make a big difference to clueless lusers when they see there name on a folder that ms-word tries to automatically save in. You may want to put a greeting pop up message in their profile when each user logs in and telling them to save there files with the directory with there name on it. THen send an email out to everyone and warn them that hard drives tend to fail and just tell them to save all their work with the folder with their name on it. Sounds simple. right?
The program to do this is called poledit and its on the windows cd. To have the profile downloaded automatically you need to create the profiles and then go to user manager and setup it up to download automatically when each user logs in. This is what I would do. If shit hits the fan you can tell management what you did with the pop-up messages, the email's and the profiles and that it was the users fault. With all of these things combined, the blame factor will move away from you and towards the user. Unless of course the server dies.
But I advise not to have users sign anything. It makes them angry and uncomfortable and they could get you in trouble. Remember that IT is customer service just like any entry level job. The customer is always first and its your job and not there's to make sure the data is backed up.
http://saveie6.com/
First, write a policy for users to follow (not more than a page), get your boss to sign it, and then distribute copies. This tells everyone that the boss is behind this. If your boss does not have line authority over the people in question then get someone who does.
Second, get your boss's approval for a half hour tutorial for all staff on the subject, attendance mandatory for all users including him/herself. Get the boss to start with a brief repeat of the disaster story, then hand over to you (write the boss a script if necessary). Tell people why they need to do it and what it is they need to do, but obviously don't go into techie detail. Also emphasise that unsafe behaviour is letting the team down: its not just your work at risk, its everyones.
Its your responsibility to determine policy, configure machines, tell people what to do, monitor progress, and report to your boss. This can and should include saying that certain users are refusing to following departmental policy. Its then his/her job to take things further, upt to and including disciplinary action if necessary. Its not likely to be necessary: few people are that boneheaded.
Good luck. Culture change is hard, but its one of the most valuable things you can do.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
This story reminds me of my earlier years as a indy IT contractor...
One of my first customers was a NAACP trial lawer. Every day one of his jeloppy win95 machines would take a shit, and every day I would fix it. I would constantly remind him how he needed NT workstation instead of 95.
When it came time for billing we would always go around in the same circle, "Now Wobbert (he had the elmer fudd ebonic accent) Why am I gettin chwarged 5 times for the same fix?"
To which I would respond, "Because you broke it 5 times!"
Then his killer statement would come, "Well then shouldn't you have fixed it right the first time so it wouldn't break again?"
To which I would go into why 95 was a POS and NT4.0 was alot better. Then we would go into costs and I would show him how his long term maintenence cost would drop if he made the switch. It never really registered with him though.
I also made the pitch to him about having a centralized server for his employee's to store data on. He just could not understand that this computer wasn't for the employee's to use nilly willy as they pleased.
I feel for you man, just run while you still have some sanity left.
First thing is to make sure management understands the magnitude of the problem. Once they are on board, you need to get a policy approved that has some teeth.
Something along the lines of NO COMPANY DATA STORED ON LOCAL HARDDRIVES. Period. Put sanctions in there. Firing on second offence, depending on the magnitude of the loss, is what we had at my last job.
Make them use mapped network drives for everything. We used H: for home directories and P: for the user-public directories. Get a time-table for moving over existing data.
Get a good backup drive, like a DLT or DAT autochanger from HP. Grok backup systems. GFS (Grandfather, Father, Son) is a real good one.
Once you choose a backup system, make sure you get the annual budget approved for media. You DO NOT reuse tapes. bad habit. Also, price an off-site storage facility that does weekly pickup.
Educate the end users. Send out a company-wide e-mail with the new policy and make sure it is brought up at the next "everyone" meeting. Make sure it is part of the new-hire orientation.
Then, you will need to create a chart of end-users that you can check off as you manually go around making sure drives are clean.
You will need to periodically check to make sure there are no repeat violators. This is what the chart is for.
I hope you have balls, because some of the worst offenders will be management. You'll need to give them a deadline -- after which point you'll wipe or reimage their drive. Follow thru.
While you're at it, look into Norton Ghost so you can create images of each system that can be pushed out from the server if necessary. Also make sure there is anti-virus software on each machine and you have a central definitions distribution point (like an NT server). Update definitions no later than once a week.
Don't even THINK about trying to backup each individual harddrive. It'll never work.
Welcome to Hell.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
First... show your financial people what it would cost to run backups of all the PCs... cost of a tape library, a year's worth of tapes, software, etc. They'll make the decision for you, and you won't have to go that route. And it will absolve you of blame if data gets lost from PC's.
Next, make sure each user has a home directory on the server, and that it gets mapped as a drive. Make it easy for them, in other words.
Then, you can try to implement a policy that all data must be stored on the server. But policies don't always fly, especially in small organizations.
If that doesn't work, you can "suggest" it: Tell them that it's safe on the server, and that it's backed up, and if they don't want to risk doing their work all over again, they'll save their work there. If you're not getting cooperation, reinstall somebody's sytem, do your best to save all their data, but maybe "lose" something unimportant... their bookmarks or whatever. That will help drive the point home. I've had pretty good luck with this approach, you just have to send frequent friendly reminders. The friendlier and funnier the reminders are, the more effective. If you can't come up with at least one good data loss joke every couple of weeks, then you're not qualified to be a sysadmin.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Create a folder named "My Documents" in each server "home" directory (in Alice's and Bob's, etc)Then remove the My Documents folder in the root drive of the Win9x machines (and the c:\documents and settings\[username] directory on NT/2000). Now create a shortcut named "My Documents" in the place of the ones you just removed and have it point to the ones on the server. Make the shortcut "Read Only" (Right Click on the shortcut | choose Poperties | In the resulting dialog, choose the General tab and click the Read Only attribute). This should prevent any software from overwriting it.
The only rule that you have to make then is that users save everything to their "My Documents" folder which will actually force everything to be saved on the server in thier home directories on the server. This shouldn't be too difficult as most software for windows that creates stuff will set "My Documents" as the main save location anyway.
Now... run backups on the server. Relatively little effort is required.
The second, more cumbersome option is to write a script that is loaded onto each machine (grab a copy of Active State Perl for this... it is free). This script would connect to a remote server on a timed basis (once every couple of hours) and upload the contents of specific directories (that the staff would have to be told to use... My Documents comes to mind). You could also search the drive for specific extensions (based on the applications that you use) like .doc and .jpg and back those up for good measure (in case the users are not saving in the proper places). Then back up the server.
The drawback is that you would have to write the script and maintain it (a lot of effort on your part if you don't know Perl already... relatively little if you already know it at least a bit). The benefit is that you can possibly catch files stored in the wrong places.
The third option is to use a 3rd party product like IBM's Tivoli which uses a client side program to back up those systems in its backup routine. The upsides are easier managment and fine grained control of backups. The downsides are increased administration duties, expense, and finding a solution that works for every platform in your organization.
Good Luck.
Why go through the hassel of setting up a backup system on each desktop? Not only will is take a while to setup, but the upkeep will also tie up a lot of time.
Just setup the workstations to use files on the server and then backup the files on the server. Duh!
Backup 1 server = easy
Backup 50 workstations = pain in ass
Plus it will be cheaper to implement!
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
One idea is to tie this into Novell's iFolder idea. The concept is you install a small client onto someone's computer, then "tag" which directories you want synched up with the users home director on the server (such as My Documents, etc).
Every time a file on either the server side or the workstation side updates, the client makes the same changes (note: changes, not the entire file, so if you change 1 sentance on a 30 MB document, you only change the few bytes of code).
We're going to try this out at my Day job for our Laptop user types, but so far, it's looking cool. Novell has mentioned future support for OS X (which I don't believe, but I'm an eternally hoping idiot.)
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The ONLY way is to put them on a LAN, put a central file server as a shared service with a CVS with copy-out (and it labels the files as .dontsave,) check-out and check-in, and tell them that only the shared drive is backed up and has to be kept virus-free and porn-free.
:-).
Tell them their systems can die at any time and they're out a limb for whatever was on there. You don't care, nor does the company. There is no money for data recovery. If their machine dies, its one a one way trip to the toxic waste dump.
Set up a Linux box with a big hard drive (120GB,) a tape drive and a CD-RW burner with plenty of tapes and CD-RWs. Use some form of CVS with check-out, check-in and versioning. You'll be able to save everything that's worth saving and turf the rest.
If you want them to get the point, screw around with the power supply connections every now and then on random machines and random users.
Take the box out, scrub the case clean (repaint a case and keep it handy for exchanging is a good trick,) and put the fear of God into 'em every now and then.
The ones who have been using the shared drive won't care and will make do with whatever you bring'em on the trolley in about ten minutes (just long enough to change the case
The slatterns who didn't use the server will whine and bitch and you just tell 'em to wait a couple of hours or days while you TRY to recover their data.
The server doesn't even need a monitor. Run it headless remote and admin it from your own machine.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
After many years of painfull experience, I have only one suggestion:
**** NEVER EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BACKUP WORKSTATIONS ****
Got my point?
Instead, go out and buy a cheap server. You can get a AtlonXP 1800 w/ 512MB of RAM and 100 GB of disk for around 200-400 dollors if you put it together yourself. From there map all drives. If you ever get stuck in a situation where you back up the PC's
A) It will get difficult to wean users off of later.
B) Builds bad saving practice. To comply with document policies, you really must centralize where your documents are.
C) Backup software tends to fail/hide/be to verbose when too many boxes are used.
If you absolutly have to backup workstations, look at network backup products like Veritas or Seagate software (err. they may have sent the product to some other company). Ask a user explicitly for a single directory to backup.
For servers, a image level backup is always a good idea. It tends to be the different between 3-4 hours recovery time and 12-24 hours.
Anyways, that's my advice.
I work in a medium sized company where the majority of our users write their data to a network share provided by a samba server. It's a simple solution where there is one public directory, which is mapped as a consisitent drive letter under windows from machine to machine. I do a nightly backup of the public drive via cron in case anybody gets stupid and deletes the entire directory. None of the data being written there is that important, so security isn't really an issue. It just provides a convienent place for people to save files that can be accessed from any workstation in the lab.
A few computers in the lab do have critical data on them. For those, I make their important directories available via windows file sharing, and mount them on our linux backup server using smbmount. Those directories are rsynced to continually backed up master directories nightly, and then the entire backup server is backed up to tape. All in all, it's a pretty simple solution, but it works fine for our intents and purposes, and it's saved my ass more than once!
A musician without the RIAA, is like a fish without a bicycle.
Being a sysadmin who always gets stuck specializing in backups, I recommend the following solution for a (relatively) low budget backup solution on Windows. Please note that this system ignores trying to get the users to do this themselves, because users will never do anything right.
1- Get all users off of Windows 98 and onto Windows 2000. Do NOT go to Windows XP. Having all your systems on one OS will make troubleshooting backup (Among others.) problems much easier, and having the systems on a better OS will help ensure that backups actually run right.
2- Get all of the systems on a Windows 2000 domain on which they have NO administrative privileges. This keeps users from screwing around with backup software and options.
3- Buy Veritas Backup Exec as well as the open file option (~$900 USD).Read the manual before you use it. If the company to spring for training, get trained. Set it up a server that won't mind the extra load.
You may notice that other companies sell other backup solutions. In a Windows environment, stick with Veritas. Veritas wrote the backup software built into Windows. Veritas works with Microsoft to make their product work well with Windows. Veritas also has what is, IMHO, some of the best software support out there.
4- First thing every morning, grab a cup of coffe and go through last night's backup logs. Keep a written journal of all failures and irregularities (A nice spreadsheet is userful as well.). This will help track errors.
5- Do test restores often! You don't want to do all this and find out that you cannot restore data properly!
6- Store backup tapes off site! Find out if Iron Mountain has a facility nearby and if so, USE IT. 99% (Yes, 99%!) of all lost data is caused by fires. Earthquakes and floods are not far behind. Nothing will wipe out a small site like a big fire that takes backup tapes with it.
7- Put together a good disaster recovery plan and try it out on test machines once a year or so. Aside from keeping you ready for a disaster (Imagine if you had been a sysadmin in the World Trade center, survived the disaster, kept fine backups off-site, but had no idea how to bring the systems back up from nothing but tapes!), it will keep you ready for small disasters (ie your domain controller's raid array croaks and corrupts all the disks on the way to the graveyard.) as well.
Hope this helps. And remember, most importantly - users are stupid assholes. The reason you get paid to dick around with computers all day is because users are stupid assholes, and can't use a computer without fucking things up. Making them backing up data is not your job; backing it up no matter what they think is!
Dear Slashdot, I don't know how to do my job. If I don't do my job right,
Unfortunately, in many offices, the person who has the most computer skill is the defacto IT-manager. In many cases, this person has no degree, no formal training, no informal training, etc...
Case in point: A little while back, my wife got a job with a small construction company. The owners's wife was in charge of all record-keeping, government forms, payroll, and any other information intensive task. My wife was hired as a receptionist, but her job description was quickly expanded to cover all the IT-specific stuff on the owner's PC just as soon as the lady found out my wife knew how to operate a computer. And yes, when data went missing because the owner wouldn't shell out for even a rudimentary backup system (They spent $5800 on a plotter, but wouldn't shell out $200 for a zip drive and some disks), my wife was fired for 'not knowing how to do her job'.
This same thing goes on in offices all over the world. If the people refuse to do the job, usually for a fraction of what a *real* sysadmin makes, they're either fired on the spot or made to leave the company in another way to make room for someone who will do the job. When they do undertake the task, they're forced to work under shitty conditions and impossible budgets.
Moral: A computer workstation and a secretary who can copy files from one drive to the next is not the same thing as a reliable IT installation. If you treat it as such, expect to get burned.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
I used to take my dead drives apart (poor free-air circulation killed four one summer,) and hang them from my cubicle wall.
Little shiny reminders to people who walked past my desk of the evenescence of things.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The first company I worked for had the same feeling as you're currently describing. There was a network, but it was loosely connecting a bunch of Win95 boxes. The standard policy was to provide a central drive where all data was saved to. It had the notion of a "home directory" in Unix land, but it was only for Data.
Then, because everyone's T: drive pointed to the same big server drive, it was easily backed up nightly.
We received monthly warnings that anything stored locally wasn't backed up, and a few dead Win95 disks and people stopped saving important stuff to the C: drive.
Nice idea, but 4 gig drives suck.
I'd suggest a variation; reformat their drives with a fairly small primary partition. That way you'll get the speed of a modern drive with the same effect.
Then, once people are used to saving their data on the network drive, you can create a secondary partition with an odd drive assignment for "personal use".
It is actually the way a lot of large (and I mean 100,000 desktops large) companies essentially do it. Create one 'Build' and roll that out to users. All data (Lotus Notes data, word docs, etc) is stored on servers.
Then when Level 1 support can't fix the problem by doing a 3 finger salute (Ctrl-Alt-Del) then they simple redeploy the build.
/b
[Please type your sig here.]
When I arrived, most data files were kept on floppy disk. No backups, no nothing.
The most important thing is to get the owner / boss on your side. Make sire he / she understands why you;re doing what you're doing and will stone face anyone who complains. If you don't have authority to make the necessry changes and enact policy, then you should start looking for a new job NOW because some loudmouth luddite will get you fired for daring to change her / his work habbits in the name of data inergrity. I once had to host a two hour meeting defending the use of usernames and passwords on the network. If it hadn't happened less than 24 hours after a mjor data loss due to people having access they didn't need, I'd have either been out of a job or forced to set up a Novell server with NO usernames or passwords.
The most important thing is to make it clear that any data on the C: Drive is disposable. Network for work, C: for personal. I sent out a memo that used the phrase, "All data stored on your hard drive (C:) Drive is considered disposable. MIS will not attempt to recover lost data on hard drives and you will be held responsible for any lost data. Information on the H:, M: and U: Drives are backed up nightly and all files less than a month old can be recovered."
My backup really went back two months, but you have to pad this ort of thing or users freak.
I didn't have to cause a disaster. A consultatn had saddled us with a bunch of Compaq Presario systems, and it only took a couple months for everyone to have expereinced or hear about a major loss of data due to failing to keep files on the server.
This is where the boss' support is vital. When people complained, the first question the boss asked was "Was the file on your computer or the server." When the file was on their hard drive, THEY got reamed for the lost data.
There were a couple of times where the data recovery took longer than the user wanted, and I had to have the "Tape drives are slow, using faster media will cost $xxx. Sign this purchase order and recovering files people accidentally deleted will be much faster" conversation.
Good Luck, and keep in mind, this is largely a social issue. If you don't have the suits on your side, it's an uphill battle that will end in being blamed for causing problems, or bamed for lost data. Don't get caught in asitution where you have no authority, but have all the responsibility for bame. Without support from the higher ups, you are the data loss scapegoat.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
although you'll probably never see it this far down..
Install perl on every machine. then simply write a script that collect's all *.doc *.xls *.whatever files and plop's them on the server in a directory with that computer's name on it.
works great, and cince I have the script writtne a bit further It also Zip's them, and keeps 5 days worth of zip files in that directory.. now the server's backup system happily spools them to the DLT tape every night. between the 5 zip files and my tape rotation (5 daily tapes, 4 weekly tapes, 12 monthly tapes and stuff a yearly away every year.) you will have the ability to go back almost to anything.
the key is to automate the backup. users are way too stupid to do it. you have to do it for them...
Basically, think of your users as a bunch of mentially ill 5 year olds... you have to do the basic tasks for them every day for the rest of their lives.
The best thing to do is to get the Orielly book NT workstation administration.. It's awesome and tells you how to do the perl +windows intergration nicely.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Be very careful with poledit. Done improperly, it can lead to more headaches than it cures. A word to the wise from someone who has been there.
You are not qualified for the job... There is not too much OS specific stuff here, don't use "it's all Windows" as an excuse.
Any decent tape drive comes with a backup software. NT server should include it too. Install the tape into one of the machines (not necessarily the server -- could be your machine) and tell it to back up all shares of all computers on the network. (C$ -- the "hidden" exports of the C: drive on each machine is, probably, the best).
Instead of retaining an outside company, train the receptionist to change the tape daily and take the previous full backup tape home. You may even put the tape drive into the receptionist's machine. In my experience, this people are the best for this -- meticulous and accurate, they also tend to appreciate the trust, the "computer guy" -- you -- put into them. Just be sure they know not to store the tapes near microwave ovens, etc.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
1. Ideally you can go with
-a file server to provide home directories, combined with logon scripts to map drives
-backup software and tape drive(s) to backup the file server
-some sort of software to install on each client, eg. www.connected.com, used to backup client-based files (ideal for your road warriors and anyone who doesn't always have access to the file server. This software will automatically back up designated directories to a server, which then should also be backed up to tape. I've used this product before; backups and recoveries are a snap
-a good rotation/offsite storage scheme
2. at a minimum you can go with
-a file server for users to dump their files to on a regular basis
-a script of some sort that replicates certain portions of user hard drives to the server
-backup software and hardware
-tape rotation/offsite storage
Some open questions:
-do you have a domain controller to authenticate againse, and push logon scripts from, or are all your clients and servers not part of a domain?
-how much budget do you have available?
-how much data are we talking about?
-how many users are we talking about?
Depending on how many users/how much data, you may be able to get by with ntbackup, provided as part of NT4.0/Win2000 as your backup software. My company primarily uses NetBackup, but we use ntbackup for 1 or 2 isolated networks.
Remember that the systems that you put in now have a tremendous effect on the organization of the company in the future. Likewise the policies you put in now, as long as they are reasonable, not to draconian, and CYA and CYCA (Cover your companies A$$) are important.
As time goes on, System Admining becomes a lot less about turning kernals, and a lot more about engineering data flow around the company. Realize that as a system admin, you now have a _lot_ of legal responsibility in the company. Among other things, you have to arbitrate between User privacy, and company security. In addition, you have root access to business documents that can and often must be considered confidential.
I recently asked a officer onboard a navy ship what was the most restricted position for people to be in. Turns out it is IT. They have access to just about anything, and so security must be tight.
Therefore, with System's Engineering perhaps more then any other computer job, you must not comprimise on principle and design if at all possible (which is not always true).
Why not try making the staff's compliance public? Test the staff's own backups to the server periodically / randomly. Then fire off a memo to the boss stating the results of the test; who complied, who failed to backup as of the night before. Post a copy of the memo on the frig. The staff knows they've been ID'd, and in the event of a true failure; the results can be trotted out who does and does not try....
Additional clarification: Buy a good tape drive. Do not let cost be your guide; buy the best-rated drive you can find. Again, if they give you grief about the drive's cost, the parent poster's advice still applies.
I used to work at $(MUMBLE_SALTPILE_MUMBLE), whose IT department was staffed by people of diminished capacity. One day, due to a re-org, they physically moved a server containing critical data. Somehow, the move killed the drives. So they went to restore from backups.
During the restore, the drive ate itself and the tape. Backup destroyed.
Now, because the IT department had the aforementioned staff of diminished capacity, the next available backup was a week old (it turns out they were doing daily backups serially onto the same tape, because it was "faster").
So the lessons here are:
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I back up a dozen servers and workstations regularly.... it's really not a problem. That's what stuff like Veritas Netbackup was *designed* to do.
Our department consisted of software engineers with development workstations. They needed total control of their own C: drives. The department provided 1) easy to use, backed-up private shares on file servers, 2)team r/w share points, and 3)department-wide r/w non-backed-up "temp" shares where files were only guaranteed to last 72 hours. So, three classes of shares, 3 scopes of access, 2 classes of them backed up. Your C drive was your own responsibility. Management was trained and bought into the idea that workers needed to be personally responsible for putting important stuff on the department shares. Slackers got no sympathy from anybody, because the share points made it soooo easy to be a good boy or girl. The "private" share addressed peoples need (real or imagined) for a place for "their private stuff" -- this is important to getting everybody's buy in.
they let me centralize our files. An office full of CAD drawings and 3D models can get screwed up pretty quick when a drive goes down.
We put in a 240 GB NAS box, stuck all of our data on it (it only filled 20 gig), and I run automated backup on it every day. Had to invest about four grand in it, but it was worth it. Case in point - our accountant (boss's wife)'s drive died yesterday. Gee, whats all our billing information worth? Think maybe we paid for that system in one day?
anything i tell you will cloud your opinion.
My experience is that the less your users have to do with backups, the better - they click through error messages, they don't read EULAs, they will not take the care you will because it is not a concern they have internalized. In general, it needs to be as automatic, hands-free and brainless as possible. REMEMBER, SIMPLE == GOOD, COMPLEX == BAD! However, you also need to realize that the backups procedures are just one part of the larger picture. Simply backing up isn't good enough, you need to create a situation where they don't have to make decisions about backing up. From their perspective, they have to just remember to keep their files in X location and the backups will just happen.
Here's (roughly) what I did:
Create a folder to hold all user files on the server, say "Files". Make sure this folder gets backed up. :)
Share the folder, and create a logon script that every user runs at logon to map this share to a COMMONLY AVAILABLE drive letter, say W:.
On W: Create several top-level folders: Private (create a folder in here for each user accessible only to them) Shared (create folders here that need to be shared by groups) Apps (create folders in here to hold for application files and data used by programs) Software (for program install files) etc...
Make sure security is set up to PREVENT users from saving files where they do not belong (like the root of W:). You may want to create a user group for each folder and use membership in that group to control access to the files. They should have to come to you to create a new folder for them in most cases, that gives you the opportunity to review the request with your superiors to ensure proper Policy & Procedures are being followed.
Teach your users this mantra "PUT ALL FILES ON W:" Put it in your email sig, your memos and on your voicemail! Use it in casual conversation - I'm not kidding, REPETITION!)
Go to each PC and move their files into their W:\Private\username folder.
Delete the moved files from their hard drive.
Reset all apps (word, excel, etc.) to default open/save on the W: drive.
Your goal should be to reprogram them to think of the network drive as the only place there is to save files.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Where I work, all Linux users NFS mount their /home directories (via automount and NIS) from a central server. They can log into any of our workstations, and have all of their desktop preferences and files.
:-)
All of the Windows machines are on a domain that's handled by the same central server running Samba. They can log into any Windows machine, and all of their preferences and files are there waiting for them.
Backups are done nightly to a DLT 8000 drive that hangs off of the central server. This has saved people's asses many times when a machine blows up (sometimes literally).
With 120gig drives as cheap as they are, and entry level robotic tape changers on the market for less than $10,000, there's no reason anyone should have to suffer through a loss of critical amounts of data.
I sleep very well at night with this arrangement.
How data gets backed up ... is sometimes dictated by who is responsible for it. Who's ass is on the line?
...)
If the individual users are responsible for their PC's data, then they probably back it up (or think they do, or try to, or intend to, or forget to, or
If the system's guys are responsible, then they probably back it up, remotely, automatically. Your post doesn't say who is responsible. Be nice if there was a policy, huh?
Responsibility without autority sucks. Beware.
=brian
Don't let users store all their own crap on their own machines. Work exclusively from a shared storage area on a networked machine, with everything set up so that a simple login on the client desktop provides access. For a small shop this will be a two-day job, and there are many many ways to do it. You could do it with a linux box running samba as domain controller and CIFS file server, and run it all from there. Very easy.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Maybe someone at score:1 has already posted this (i browse at +2), but setup a win2k server (samba might be able to do this as well) and setup the user accounts to map the user directories and profile to the server, and NOT the workstations. Then install the backup device of your choice to the server and backup the data as needed / desired. To prevent the users from screwing with their profiles, make the profiles mandatory by renaming the ntuser.dat to ntuser.man in the user profile (which if i recall, is in the active directory users and computer tool on win2k server).
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
I'm not going to suggest ruling through fear, because it just doesn't work. What you need to do (and what we did here a long while ago) is to make it so people want to use the network drives. We set up a system where everything was organized and people could the have an easier time finding what they wanted. We set up multiple network drives, each with a specific purpose. One was for company documents (SOPs, forms, etc). One was for correspondence with other companies, and was organized by company. Things of that nature. It didn't happen overnight, but eventually people realized that this was easier than keeping everything locally and having to try and figure out who had this document or keeping multiple copies of things on different computers. It certainly won't happen overnight, and you will have to remind people constantly at first, but eventually they will realize the benefits of it (especially the first time they accidentally overwrite a file and you can recover it from the backup). The key is that it will take a long time to make everyone use it consistently, and there is no way to change that.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Personally, we didn't even try at a number of places I've worked (years ago, before My Documents could be replicated to servers automatically and so on) - we just couldn't get everyone into the habit; since we were a Mac shop, we used Retrospect to monitor and backup everyones' workstation and make sure we hoovered out everything that couldn't be restored trivially. They do Windows now, and it's all user transparent.
Secretly replace one workers harddisk with a new one (empty), and watch the panic. Step in and say what you did, and tell everyone that tomorrow this could be reality for any of them. How about we make back ups?
;)
Maybe it is not strikly neccesary to replace a disk, but the idea still stands
If there's not that many desktops, it's often easier to just redirect My Documents by right clicking it and setting a new path (I use H:\ for "Home"...though U for "you" is quite cute [g]). Poledit on Win9x machines is downright ugly.
I found a little utility called Backup Magic that works pretty well. You configure the important directories that you want backed up, specify the network-shared folder to copy them too and set it to automatically start when clicked. Then you can just add it to a system schedular and it's done automatically.
Upon re-reading your question, I see that you have already had your Disaster That Everyone Should Learn From, so there should be no need to engineer one.
The first thing to do (which you may have already done) is create a folder called "Home" or "Users" or something similar. In that folder make subfolders for each user or position (job titles are good for positions with lots of turnover, like receptionists, while department heads tend to like seeing their names on things) and set the access in the Sharing and the Security tabs. You can be 'loose' in the Sharing tab, but you MUST be 'tight' in the Security tab. (Security affects all access whether local or over the network.) Figuring out which boss gets which access to which employees files will probably be the most annoying part. That's it from the server side. For starters, anyway.
On the client side, you'll have to go around and map the appropriate drives from each workstation. Use the same drive letter for everybody, it makes it easier to help them when they lose stuff. If users will have to be connected to multiple drives, you might want to make sure that 'Policies' is always P:, while 'Accounting' is always M:, or what have you. Set them to reconnect at logon. Move all the user documents to the networked folder. If you just copy them, the users will somehow manage to create problems by saving the networked version locally and vice-versa. You'll probably have to use the Find program to get all their documents, since the users probably don't know where they all are, and non-MS apps store them in different folders. If they have desktop shortcuts to local folders, you should delete them, and recreate ones that point to the new locations. Then, you'll have to go into each app and change the default save location from C:\My Documents, to H:\whatever.
You should also write a 'How To Work With Network Files' cheat sheet and distribute it to everyone. They probably won't read it, but you'll feel better.
You can use logon scripts to do the drive mapping, but it doesn't always work with Win9x quite right, so it might be easier to skip that. If the server is locked up when the users logon, they won't access their drives (obviously), and they'll get an error message. Unfortunately, the most common response to this message is to tell the pc to NOT reconnect to the share at the next logon, so the drives will be 'gone' as far the users are concerned. They will then panic. It's not a big deal, but it is something to be aware of.
Also, have a backup plan for tape-swapping when you're on vacation or out sick. You are the de facto administrator, so you should have a de facto assistant.
It will be a fair amount of work on the setup side, but it shouldn't be too much upkeep, barring lots of employee turnover. IF you have things organized well the first time that is. It's worth it to spend more time upfront.
As far as the actual backups go, test it by backing up a few random folders every week or two. You don't want to have the first time you back something up be the first time something goes wrong. Trust me on that, it sucks.
"Bugger this, I want a better world." - Jenny Sparks
All laptops running Windows should be using Win2000. Win2k's syncronize function works beatifully for this. XP's works...but it's a bit more of a pain.
Since he's using NT 4, I thought I'd say that you can do this in Windows via login scripts, but it's iffy in that Win9x sometimes just doesn't run the script for whatever reason.
"Bugger this, I want a better world." - Jenny Sparks
and make them use it for all company documents, then back up the network drive regularly to tape.
network drive does not have to be a huge 100 TB datahouse, it could be as simple as a shared drive on a dedicated win 2000 box. 2 100GB HDDS... one backs up to the other daily, and once a week you copy the second to tape and store it.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
If there's a department that can't stand to work off the main file server, get them a a budget departmental server. Centralized backups are faster, easier managed, and done correctly. Workstation backups are very rarely done consistently.
I know - its expensive, proprietary etc - but you can install the backup client on just about any computer you can think of (they even make clients for netapp filers). I've sucessfully installed it on Windows 98, NT, 2000, XP, Tru64, Solaris, Linux (debian and redhat) and BSD.
What happens is the Tivoli server (it has a raid array, and a robot based tape drive) backs up the clients automatically and if you need a file you can restore it automatically without even going to the users desk. And its actually relatively quick.
Currently win2k can mount (win2k call them junction points, but whatever) disks onto an ntfs5 filesystem directory. It can even do what equates to hardlinking, BUT it only works on the local machine. You cannot link or mount windows shares, or lettered shares.
Maybe they will add the feature later to make "My Documents" link to \\remote-file-server\$username\dox ?
I solved the problem by simply creating a folder on her desktop, changing its icon to the gray rectangular "hard drive" icon, and changing her hard drive's icon to a folder icon and renaming it "operating system stuff". I then copied her docs into the "hard drive" folder. From then on she faithfully saved all of her documents to the hard drive folder.
It worked well, although I sort of feel sorry for the next sysadmin who has to troubleshoot her machine.
Amazing magic tricks
Proud to be a fool. Thankful I'm not a corporate troll.
1. Centralized servers are nice, except that they are centralized. In an office with no IT staff or experience, a single failure can easily mean the whole office is stopped, doing nothing. 25 machines means that even with a few broken machines (small offices usually have at least one person at a time whose PC is "down") that most people can work regardless of the server/network status. Centralized Citrix/X servers are very bad idea in a place with no real technical staff. Schools, libararies, etc are perfect. Small satellite offices with ad-hoc tech guys aren't. One problem with that server and bammo - no more work being done anywhere.
That was old-school. Current tech for redundant power supply, RAID, fall-over servers, and the over-all reliability of modern computers makes your fears obsolete. Any office with no IT staff has a local tech (private contractor) to call if they do have a breakdown. And if this example is so data-critical, what the hell are they doing without an IT pro in the first place? Reliable, centralized data processing is ubiquitous in this day and age. Can you honestly tell me that servers in your environment are crashing or having hardware failures?
2. There are a number of X-servers available for Windows.
Yes, and they all require a computer running Windows. Are you going to suggest that someone buy thin clients which netboot Windows just to slowly run an X server?
3. Citrix is just expensive, not slow.
Citrix is dead slow, the whole GUI architecture of Windows doesn't allow for the network transmission of graphics primitives the way X does. Add to that the gross eye-candy in the latest Windows (yet more bitmaps), the abysmal Windows use of shared libraries. Citrix may seem fast if you have nothing else to compare it to.
4. You can move a user's home directory to the server and "mount" it at startup. Its a very simple exerice. It is entirely transparent to the user.
Which is all the guy is going to be able to do in his Win98/2000 situation.
5. You can easily secure the system volume with permissions that disallow users from mucking about with it.
6. You can also use system policies to define which users can do what things: install software, do extraordinary stuff with printers, etc.
Not in Win 98. Are you suggesting that the person go out and buy a bunch of Win2000 or XP upgrades just to accommodate useful file shares?
Let's face it: you know nothing about Windows and have trolled to promote your pet OS. It is especially heinous because you're sarcastic remarks lead this poor non-technical guy down a road that could lead to absolute disaster.
Frankly, FUD is about all people have for a reason to encourage people to work with Win these days.
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
Actually, after I posted I read your reply and I agree, that does look like a really good service for what they need. I'll recommend it. Thanks for the link!
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Holy shit!
I can't belive I got that wrong!
I used to watch that show all the time.
It's been a long time.
and on every pc make that directory point to a shared folder on a server like
\\servername\sharename\%username
and then make on the server into the sharenamed folder a folder with full control only for that user.
%username is an environment variable in microsoft windows (it's %username on all different language versions of windows). You can manage the 'my documents' folder from the domain controller if you have win2k and active directory to point automatically to that dir, but on the win98 machines you have to do it yourself.
then tell users to use their 'my document' folder (easy - many microsoft programs already do it themselves by default).
Then do another shared for everybody, and with a logon script make every user mount it as, say, unit 'X:'. Tell them that everyone's documents are on unit X: and they'll be happy.
have fun.
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
You know that this isn't a technical issue at all. It's an administrative/cultural/political issue. Depending on the company's business, it could be a legal issue as well. And -- call me a heretic -- but this isn't necessarily an issue that's solved by chanting ``install Linux''.
I'd be very surprised if there isn't already a company policy covering this. It may not be getting adhered to in the local office but if there is a policy you need to convince someone -- your boss or whoever it was that seems to have assigned you to this task -- that the policies/procedures need to be followed. If they don't understand that these computers are company resources and need to be looked after, they'll have to be convinced. (Boy, you'll have to be tactful when you do this. :-) ) One should be able to assign a dollar amount to the loss of the data. That'll grab 'em. If you're unable to convince the higher-ups that having business critical information residing on unmanaged computers -- and that it should be centralized to protect it -- isn't a problem, then I'd get that opinion/decision in writing. I'd guess that, one of these days, you'll be held responsible when the next chunk of critical data is lost.
If you get the go-ahead to begin centralizing everyone's files some of the things you'll want to do are:
Another alternative to storing all data on a central server is to purchase something like Legato (or a similar product) that allows you to backup the desktop systems over the network. The drawbacks to this are cost and that employees can no longer turn their systems off at night if they want the data backed up.
Good luck.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Encourage users to work on their important files on file servers. If you don't have a file server, get one ... now ... . Once you have a file server in place you should consider more client server applications to enable people to do their work.
Once you architected your IT environment the way you should, add a DAT tape drive in the server and schedule incremental backups.
You're being set up as the patsy, the guy who will be fired "for cause" and to the relief of the real assholes, the next time things go wrong. And they will go wrong with the parameters you're currently working under.
This is normally a non-winnable situation. All you can do is recommend, in writing, that a central server with good backups be set up, employees instructed to save their work to that server (which is backed up), and that compliance is a line item on their review and (most importantly) you are God and twice a year your job is to "crash" their system and give them a temporary replacement to ensure that they have backed up their files. It is important that you can do this at any time, without challenge, even immediately prior to deadlines and vacations. After all, fires, gas leaks, ceiling collapses, etc. don't follow your business schedule either, and if people know they can cut corners when it matters most they will.
As others have pointed out, this test is actually performed by making an early morning raid and putting a cardboard flame on their box. Part of the test is how long it takes them to report the problem, and if they cheat by turning on the machine (or "losing" the flame) then you have the authority to file a written reprimand with HR for interference with a test designed to verify compliance with policy. This is in addition to a second written reprimand for failing to perform backups, and HR will be instructed to remind the employee that they will be fired "for cause" on a third reprimand. If they're going to expose the company to massive financial loss due to lost files, despite clearly established policy and need, there's no point in keeping them around.
But management won't do that (if they understood how serious this is, you won't have lost data earlier) and you'll be unable to force people to back up their files to a network drive, to keep systems up so a distributed backup will work, etc., and you will be the guy who's fired for failure to follow policy when the next disk crash occurs.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Then, in the middle of the night, format everyone's machines and stick fresh OS installs on all of them. If possible, ghost one machine's fresh install and use it everywhere. Then, the only backup you have to worry about is the H: drive.
You're offloading system administration tasks on the users, and giving them an drop-dead ultimatim. Not cool. No fallback. You'll cause much harm.
Instead try billing it as an "upgrade". That way they'll take any inconvenience as a side-effect of something useful to them, rather than as you deliberately screwing up their data and lives to make your job easier.
Also:
Do it by departments, workgroups, or segments of the cube farm, in stages.
Start with a very small group. You get to work the kinks out with a minimum of trouble if something went wrong, and the group will spread the word to other users on how to ease the transistion. That will let you do larger groups later.
Don't just format their disks. Swap 'em out for fresh ones and keep the old disks handy. Help the users recover any data from the swapped out disks for a few days, check that they've got all they need, maybe back the disks up just in case. THEN format them and swap them IN on the next group of victims.
Make a point of how much extra work you're doing to be SURE they don't lose any important data during the transition (even though you're not doing all THAT much extra). And of course harp on how the main point of the upgrade is to protect their data in the future (which IS true).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Any regular processing that requires human intervention is setting
yourself up for failure, not setting yourself up for success. People
are people, and we all forget things. Working late, bleary eyed, the
best of us can forget to "copy files to the network server for back."
Suggestions as to have users sign papers to say I know I need to back
up, and if I don't it's my fault, yada yada are bad too. That's not
solving the problem, that CYA. Lame.
Workstation backup isn't that hard. If you totally lose a drive, all
you need to restore it are the app and OS binaries, and the user's
data. The app and OS are on CD's, so those serve as backups for that,
so it's the user's data we need to focus on.
Designate a few folders to back up. E.g. where-ever email is stored,
the desktop, a user folder (if it's in windows, Documents and Settings
is a good one, as a lot of programs default things to save in there.
if it's unix, just make it the user's home directory). You don't need
to backup the entire drive. In fact, that's more than likely a waste,
except in a few cases.
Users can easily understand the should work in a specified folder or
folders underneath that folder. This doesn't require an additional
step (it's still just saving), it's a matter of where they're saving.
Are there hypothetical holes still? Sure. Do they happen in practice
that often (if ever)? Not really. If you're super paranoid (or super
diligent, depending on how you look at it), you can write a process
that looks for modified files outside the targeted back up region. If
it's a file common on a lot of machines, it's probably a standard file
(e.g. a config, preference, etc.), and you can most likely whitelist
those. Others could notify yourself (or the user) via email, and
politely ask that they move it if it is to be backed up.
Lastly, *test* *your* *setup*. This cannot be emphasized enough. You
don't need to delete a user file or anything dumb like that. Just
ask someone to name a random important file, and confirm you can
restore it to a different drive. Or pretend your production server
just crashed and you need to bring it back.
This has two key advantages: 1) obviously confirms your setup works,
2) lets you get comfortable with the restore process in a non-stressed
manner, which things going wrong is okay. You don't want to be trying
to figure it out when you're already stressed out because things have
gone horribly wrong.
Anyway, HTH.
-Bill
SlashSig Karma: Excellent (mostly affected by moderatio
I'm actually serious.... I was in the same situation and people kept lapsing back into their old habits. I had tried all the tricks, move My Documents, setup roaming profiles, gave everyone a P: drive (personal) but there were a few older applications that made it difficult to save their datafiles somewhere besides the locations apparently hard coded in.
I pleaded and swore and I posted a big memo about about it and waited. On the second night after everyone had left I replaced one of the more irritating higher ups machine with a faster one. I put the old one on the bench and completely tore it apart. Since we had roaming profiles he had most of his stuff working but he had lost data. I restored his files a few hours later after feigning concern that I might not be able to and making him look foolish for saving files on his local drive. He was seriously pissed, but unable to do anything about it since he got the new computer and had been recently warned about local data.
Now I occasionally play musical computers with the 18 systems in my office just to keep them on their toes.
The prob I still have is getting people to shut down all their apps and log out every night. I've tried those auto logout scripts but they shut things dpown too hard sometimes and people often work late here so they're kinda rude.
Now, I know that an all-winders shop was part of the spec, but I really haven't seen anything that works as well as BackupPC, including some expensive proprietary packages.
BackupPC is a set of very nice Perl scripts and modules that uses Samba to connect to your Winders machines and back up their data to a 'data pool' on the BackupPC server's hard drive. It can be configured to run the backups at night, and will run the backup during the day if it missed the nightly due to the user shutting their machine off or taking their laptop home. It also uses MD5 hashes to check for duplicate files and will make hard links instead of duplicates in order to save space on the server's drive. You can set it up to access client machines via the hidden shares, i.e. C$; there's no software to load on the clients. User data can also be compressed, or just stored on the server's drive as plain files. Makes restoring a snap, and you don't have to worry about aging tapes or corrupted backup databases.
BackupPC as far as I know only works well when the server is running on Linux, as it depends on samba, tar, Apache, etc. Setting it up is easy for someone with a Linux/Unix background, but it can be a learning process for someone new to Linux and Perl.
Did I mention it was free?
include $sig;
1;
Sadely, the first person who will fail to back up their information will be a VP or a sibling of the boss, who can't be fired.
You cannot be "given" the ability to ensure that people back things up, all you can do is ensure that your file servers are backed up & restorable. Users must be responsible for their own data. If they don't back it up, and it gets destroyed, see if they can fire the idiot.
Karma: Food Fight (Mostly affected by Date Plate).
Hell, save some money and administration headache. Run it on linux with samba.
OK, yes, you've covered all the sysadmin geeky things you can do for file backup.
But there's something much more important in the long run. (Granted my following point is about document retention, not just 'backups.')
Keep REALLY GOOD PAPER RECORDS! Seriously, most of your users' most valuable information is in some simple document form. Documents they wrote up for customers. Financial documents. Have an appropriate person (lackey, with operations manager supervision) collect the most valuable documents, make sure they're printed and filed in triple, and send them off to Iron Mountain and two other safe places.
We'd love to think that digital media is the most portable, flexible, yadda yadda. Well, it is...sorta. But it's also quite fragile. Sadly, there probably WILL be Word 97 translators out there in the year 2020...but they'll probably be sorta crappy. Paper records are really quite valuable.
Oh, and you think 2020 is far off? Ever do legal research? Read up on deeds and stuff? Documents need to last a long time.
Novell, where I worked until recently, has a product called iFolder that works well for this. Basically, it provides a client that can copy from the client to the server in a lazy fashion whenever the client is attached to the internet (not just the office net)... it uses RSA encryption and has passphrase, key recovery, conflict resolution, all kindza good stuff. The client policies are all server controlled.
h tm l
The server runs on Linux (Red Hat only, officially), Windows, and NetWare. Client is Windows only. Specs here:
http://www.novell.com/products/ifolder/sysreqs.
Unfortunately, the price is idiotic. $50 a seat. You get a stripped down version free with NetWare 6, but it doesn't have the features you need to make it work well. Novell has had bad pricing for years, probably because the same product managers who made the dumb pricing decisions before are still there.
But, if the price drops you might want to check it out, it's a great solution for roaming users with laptops.
I've also used Second Copy from Centered http://www.centered.com/ . It's pretty good stuff. Allows you to set a backup policy for copying stuff up to a server. My biggest complaint, which may be fixed now, is that there didn't seem to be an easy way to do an automated roll out of the client. But, you just set the copy policy, set it to copy to a mapped drive, and let it go. More configuration setting than you could imagine, although it does require you to have a drive mapping and not a simple IP connection like iFolder.
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
I had a similar problem at the school I work for. We have a central file server running Vertias backup exec. Gave everyone a "home" directory on the server and mapped the drive via login script. I told everyone to put all their documents there....and of course some people didn't do that.
So I forced the issue by installing Fortres on every machine and locked down the user's ability to save files locally....so if they want to save the document, they need to save it on the server. I am also running the central control module to easily push out changes to the workstations.
I thought about using roaming profiles (Windows 2000/NT/9x required), but they are a pain in the ass. Some local apps don't like the roaming profile thing, and the file synchronization on login and logoff was killing our network bandwidth (as well as annoying the users with really long login/logout times.)
Hope this helps.
-ted
I was lucky enough to talk the boss into using Linux/Samba in place of a 2k server, and most of their files are on a share on the linux server. However, some users still keep their documents on their hard drive, usually in My Documents, but sometimes on the root of their C drive. So, I just wrote a Perl script to go to their box every night, grab their stuff, tar it, and bring it back to the server. Then, everything on the server is tarred and uploaded to an offsite FTP.
Good luck,
-Ted
One of the big problems with Windows is that there's no standard home directory. Microsoft apps save everything to My_Documents, other apps to wherever they feel like. Even worse, sometimes it's really hard to find where an app has saved its files becuase the directories are cryptically named. Then you have the problem of people moving their data to places that make more sense, and other people moving them to somewhere else entirely.
More than once I've had to rescue a small business who moved their Quickbooks data into My_Documents, then their accountant worked on it and saved it back to the original location. Anyone who's worked with Quickbooks knows what a mess this is- you can't just merge the two files. It's back to square one- sometimes with weeks' worth of data!
If Microsoft and Windows developers would just standardize one one home directory, it would make everyone's lives a lot easier.
Yes. A word of advice: don't fuck with poledit on a Novell network. That causes trouble with multiple login servers. Been there, done that. Unlike NT, where you have a dedicated domain controller where everyone and his brother logs into, in novell, if you have your .POL file in SYS:PUBLIC\, it will look for it on that logon server... forever. It becomes "sticky" in the registry. Note that this applies only to Win9x clients. With Novell use ZENWorks.
.reg file out to the clients to fix Office's default "My Documents" folder.
Of course, I think when you logon to an NT domain, an environment variable like %HOMEDRIVE% and %HOMEDIR% are created, so programs like Office create your My Documents folder in %HOMEDRIVE%\My Documents. If you have lots of Win9x clients you could probably (albeit more difficult) set up a Samba server with users/passwords and create Username$ shares for all the users. Map a few drives, make them persistent connections, and just push a
Of course if everyone was running Windows 2000 you could just use Group Policy, which I might add is the bomb diggity, yo.
Retrospect on the PC has a weird interface. On the plus side, it is the only backup software I know of that can encrypt (DES). Encryption is necessary; you don't want to have to put CD and tape backups in the safe. Note that DES encryption is safe; password protection is not safe.
Dantz was just sold; it is unclear whether the company has management smart enough to coordinate the continued development of a technical product. I've seen some evidence that makes me think the company is very light on technical understanding.
This is all my opinion, of course.
For several years, Veritas Backup Exec was my choice for the worst software I'd ever seen. It had a database system that sometimes took 20 minutes (20 minutes, not seconds!!!) to find a record. Communication from Veritas acknowledged this; people would otherwise think their computers were broken.
Maybe the other software they sold was better, but Backup Exec was worse than any shareware or freeware I'd ever seen. (However, I'm picky about what I download.)
Backup Exec (which was originally sold by Seagate) was worse than HP backup software (originally from Colorado Memory), one version of which littered hard drives with zero length files. Yes, HP backup software actually WROTE to the hard drive. The file names were names of actual files in other folders. An HP technical support person tried to convince me that this was not such a bad bug.
Another specialty of Backup Exec was incomprehensible error messages.
I agree, forget tape; there are too many cases where it is a write-only media.
A lot of people who say they like their backup software have never done tests to see if they can get the data back. Try restoring to another drive and doing a byte-for-byte compare. You will be amazed at how often backups are not really backups.
In my opinion, there is no important class of software that is as poor as backup software. The software that should be the best is the worst! The reason appears to be that only about 1% of customers actually test their backups to see if they work. What most people accept as good backup software is a slick interface and reassuring backup progress messages.
Note: My info about Veritas is old; quite obviously I would not want continued experience with the company.
Worse yet, Windows XP puts user files and temporary files in the same folder!!
For example:
C:\Documents and Settings\DavidR\Local Settings\Temp
and
C:\Documents and Settings\DavidR\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files
along with
C:\Documents and Settings\DavidR\My Documents
It's mind-boggling why Microsoft does this. Maybe it makes it easier for the CIA or NSA.
Note to those who have always worked with Unix: MS Windows is worse than you've heard.
Fair enough. Provided your job description doesn't require you to be a sysadmin wizard, then ask your management for the budget to hire one as a consultant to help you put together a reliable backup solution (selection of products to use, file placement rules, drawing up procedures for backup and restoration, documenting it and providing user education, etc.). The solution should be one which doesn't require the users to do anything more than follow a few simple and well-documented guidelines, and preferably it should make their life massively easier if they do follow these guidelines rather than do their own thing. You should be able to sell this to your management by pointing out that the cost of a professional solution will be small compared with the lossage if the current situation continues (from what you say, they've already learnt this the hard way). Sell it to the users as a desirable upgrade that will make their lives easier and safer.
Do insist that you get to work with the hired consultant as the solution is specified - that way the consultant gets warned of any 'gotchas' that may be special to your local setup, and you get to learn properly how the solution works so you can modify it to meet new requirements that will come along in the future. Choose a consultant who has the right attitude and you'll also get a valuable lesson in how to build such solutions. And last, but by no means least, if there's a massive screwup and the solution breaks, you may be able to transfer at least some of the blame ;-)
Good luck.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You mean like this:
There's not a man I meet but doth salute me,
As if I were their well-acquainted friend.
No, Shakespeare only uses "their" in this instance. I think they were complaining that the person used both "they" as a singular and "s/he".
Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
The environment I work in has about 20 users using win98se, XP, 2000, and NT 4.0.
/compact", 1, true
I setup a File Server and a Backup Server. I use a script to copy everything from the File Server to the Backup Server every night and then pkzip everything into a single large file on a nightly basis. The script generates a unique filename using the date. (eg: 6132002.zip).
I find this procedure the most versatile and convenient, as I only touch the backup server whenever the drive is close to filling up. I get an archive of all the daily changes made to every file. And I can quickly and conveniently access and manipulate all the files anytime (unlike Tape.) Of course if your company deals with large poorly compressible files (multimedia), this is not as effective. (BTW, pkzip has final zip size 2gig limit. I believe bzip has a 4 gig limit.)
Of course this is not a mission critical enterprise solution. (offline storage, offsite storage, etc.) But the raid and 2 separate servers gives me enough assurance for our small company's modest computing needs. (add a tape system if you'd like anyway)
The procedure:
Setup a File Server that everyone is mapped to upon logging in. (eg: N:\ drive)
Force all users to save everything to the mapped drive. Our company uses MS Outlook, so I have saved all the PST files to the file server as well.
Make sure the File Server is configured with 2 large drives in RAID 1 (mirrored. Software raid will be sufficient, otherwise get a $50 IDE RAID card). As this will be a production server, go with 7200 RPM drives. Size will not be an issue for most office environments saving word, excel, and access files.
Setup a Backup server. Any spare old computer will do with a 100MB NIC. Install 2 identical IDE HD's and run them in RAID1. 5400 RPM will be enough as the bottleneck will be the NIC and performance will not be an issue. The bigger the better. (eg: 120Gigs)
Write a script file. Mine is written using VBS. I use the command line version of pkzip in the script. I've attached it below as a reference.
In the future, I plan to replace our NT 4.0 file/backup servers with Redhat+Samba.
BTW, I've tried using Ghost, which is a great little program. However I don't find it as useful because of the diversity of hardware and licensing. So I end up with quite a few images for a small number of computers.
The script: (BTW, Copyall.bat is a dos batch file to copy all the files from the File Server to the Backup Server.)
'Backup.vbs
'Edwin Park 02-28-02
'CopyAll.bat will copy over files from File Server.
'Then Backup.Vbs will pkzip them locally using the date as the filename.
Option Explicit
Dim strDate
'pull out the "/" character because files cannot have "/" in them
strDate = Replace(Date(), "/", "-") 'strDate = 2202002
Dim WshShell
Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.Run "CopyAll.bat >> copylog.txt", 1, true
WshShell.Run "pkzip25.exe -add -nofix -recurse -path=relative e:\backup\archive\" & strDate & " e:\backup\backupNight\*.* >> ziplog.txt", 1, true
'file "02202002.zip" is created
'Compact the database
WshShell.Run """c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Msaccess.exe"" n:\DB_Shine_2000.mdb
Set WshShell = Nothing
Oh, I have . . . I just don't do it on so-called "news" sites. And I search Google first.
However, the average person DOESN'T understand the difference. They don't understand the difference between memory, harddisks and network storage, and they shouldn't have to. I don't have to understand anything about the internal combustion engine to drive a car.
:)
I disagree with your point and analogy. I assume you know where to put oil in your car, and that the radiator is not the place for it. Furthermore, I am reasonably sure that you know enough not to put coolent in your engine
My point is that people (the averave person) SHOULD have a BASIC understanding of where information is and should be stored. This does not mean that they need to understand the inner workings of hard drives, any more than you need to understand how the transmission works in your car.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Thanks for the info. We are saying, however, that Veritas cannot be trusted, aren't we?
...And in a society such as ours which glamorizes ignorance and worships intollerance, you are the king.
It's been a long time.
Dear Lux,
I am writing to you because there are clearly evil BOFHs on this site that in the old days told people to Format C:. Do not listen to their evil ways, or go to the dark side you will.
Any of these people who are suggesting purposely destroying data are lunatics, are highly unprofessional, and should be in violation of an IS code of ethics. First Do No Harm should be your motto.
That having been said, I would perform an amalgamation of what others have suggested-
*Create a base ghost image that is bootable on your site's PC models,
*Create application 'drives' and user drives, apps and shared data goes with the app, users have their own personal space,
*Get users converted to these shares and beat into their heads that if it's on the server it's forever, HDD data can be gone tomorrow,
*Get your backups set and tested waaay before the Big Day,
*Big Day -1, backup the workstations,
*Big Day, ghost the user's hard drive, recover any missing data to their network share,
*Big Day +1 on, all apps always go to the network drive, and reghost their workstations if any problems and take no crap if they foolishly left anything on the PC that was important to the business.
Of all the difficulties for your situation, the last one is most troublesome- the ghost image will clean out any problem and enforce the network drive rule, but many Windows apps absolutely require an install on C:. In this case you need a server deliverable workstation install- most packages should allow it.
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________