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What is Your Backup Policy?
higuita asks: "A few days ago, I was asked to check our backups policy, how they are being applied and to try to make it safer and more useful. Being new to the company, I started to check what is being done right now and found several problems. Since I don't have much experience with enterprise backups, what are the most used backup policies, software and global ideas about this issue? We have less than 1000 workstations (Windows and Macs), about 20 Oracle and Exchange servers (split between Windows, Solaris, and Linux), and it all needs to be backed up. Right now, we use the HP data protector with several tapes, where most things have a weekly full backup and daily incremental backups, and that most full backups are archived permanently in a safe we have for this purpose. We also have off-site storage for backups, as well. What practices and policies do Slashdot users implement for backups they perform at their office (home backups practices I am not interested in)?"
"I've investigated Veritas NetBackup and other solutions, and I'm also curious if Amanda could be better or at approximate the features offered by HP Data Protector. What backup software have you used that you found enjoyable with the least bit of hassle?
I've thought about using Dirvish to backup the user's homes to a cheap server with several HDs, and only backup to tapes once every 15 days or even once a month. They will lose their Windows permissions, but I don't think that matters much, since this is just for safekeeping the users' work. I thought about making full backups of the servers every 15 days with daily incremental backups. This way I will free up tape drives' time and gain more flexibility with the backup schedule.
I would love it if users worked off of file servers, but right now this just isn't possible. It's a planned addition that we still don't have the time to make."
I've thought about using Dirvish to backup the user's homes to a cheap server with several HDs, and only backup to tapes once every 15 days or even once a month. They will lose their Windows permissions, but I don't think that matters much, since this is just for safekeeping the users' work. I thought about making full backups of the servers every 15 days with daily incremental backups. This way I will free up tape drives' time and gain more flexibility with the backup schedule.
I would love it if users worked off of file servers, but right now this just isn't possible. It's a planned addition that we still don't have the time to make."
For that many systems, use a professional, enterprise grade, commercial solution. The open source stuff doesn't supply the same manageability.
AND FOR GOD'S SAKE, REGULARLY VERIFY THAT YOU CAN READ THE TAPES BACK... More sites have been screwed by backup tapes that weren't readable than any other failure mode. Verifying every tape is best. Second best is every weekly. Random samples, but covering every single drive's tape output at least once a month, are poor third place.
The two obvious software suggestions are Veritas/Symantec NetBackup and Legato Networker.
Weekly fulls and daily incrementals are good. Your offsite schedule should be checked to ensure that you have a relatively recent restore point both onsite (in case of data loss) and offsite (in case of building loss).
In terms of offsites, having a prepared plan for where and how to restore (Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity) is also important. But those all start with "Go get the tapes...".
At work we do the same, only to a larger extent. We've got an on-site and off-site storage, and each piece of information is printed in two copies to be stored at each. All that in addition to your usual Veritas tape and CD-RW backups, which we do for convenience of restoring lost data, but which we don't trust enough to eliminate paper copies.