Re: Advice on external backup of a Linux server.

From: Arthur Pemberton (dalive_at_flashmail.com)
Date: 02/10/05

  • Next message: Arthur Pemberton: "Re: Display goes bad, seemingly randomly, during install of FC3" 
    Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 00:11:56 -0400
To: For users of Fedora Core releases <fedora-list@redhat.com>

    Bill Gradwohl wrote:

    > Arthur Pemberton wrote:
    >
    >> However I'm planning this for a smal business. As I'm sure you're
    >> aware normal employees (ie. non geek, or computer centric) shouldnt'
    >> really be trusted with anything computer, so if possible, I woudl
    >> prefer not to rely on them to switch on the USB HDD to allow it to
    >> backup.
    >
    >
    > In a business situation, you have to answer the question: "Am I going
    > to take a true disaster into consideration or not?"
    >
    > Since 1982, we've seen only 1 real disaster. A twister that rolled
    > thru downtown Ft. Worth and did lots of damage. One of the larger
    > building was so heavily damaged that it was condemned by the city. A
    > client of ours in that building had their office space so completely
    > trashed, we couldn't identify where we were when we hit their floor.
    > The interior walls were gone, exterior windows blown out, etc. We
    > found a users area where the monitor was sucked out the window,
    > severing the cable to the computer. The computer however worked just
    > fine when we retrieved it from under the desk and gave it a new monitor.
    >
    > Their server room was drenched in water with soaked ceiling tiles and
    > insulation all over the equipment.. We physically moved the gear to a
    > new site a few miles away, opened up and dried off everything, plugged
    > things in and they were up. Not one computer was lost.
    >
    > Now, when someone says that you HAVE to consider disaster recovery,
    > I'm no longer in complete agreement. Its up to you. If you want off
    > site backup fine. If not, that's fine too.
    >
    > We don't think software RAID is a good idea. We prefer real hardware
    > RAID. RAIDing a server does not provide disaster recovery protection.
    > If the box burns, gets flooded, stolen, etc, its ALL gone. RAID isn't
    > even good for "oops" recovery. When someone creates an "oops" mini
    > disaster by erasing the payroll master file, its still gone even with
    > a RAID array.
    >
    > In our experience, "oops" mini disasters occur all the time. They are
    > the ones you need to protect against. Having a spinning "snapshot"
    > backup on disk is the way to go. We set them up to snapshot the
    > servers main drive or drive array(s) every hour during working hours,
    > and once over night. Should someone destroy a file, the admin can
    > reach into the latest snapshot and retrieve it, or the generation from
    > an hour ago, or the one from 3 hours ago, or the one for 3PM last
    > Thursday, etc. That's the flexibility a business needs. If the latest
    > upgrade to the accounting system software turns out to be problematic,
    > we can roll it back by grabbing a generation of the environment from
    > before the upgrade. These are the common problems that backup can
    > handle well and occur routinely in any business environment.
    >
    > Most small business users can't properly handle restores from tape, or
    > even consistently feed the machine a new tape daily. Therefore, we
    > gave up on tape a few years ago. Any "admin" can use their Windows
    > Explorer to hit the snapshot area and retrieve a file with a few mouse
    > clicks. Note that only the admin and the business owners are given
    > access rights to the snapshot area. Internal drives are perfect for
    > this, and require no manual intervention. If a site has more than one
    > server, we'll consider backing up server1 to the backup drives of
    > server2 and vice versa as added protection. In a pinch, server2 can
    > mount those drives for the end users to access almost immediately
    > should server1 go up in smoke, for example.
    >
    > If you want disaster recovery backup on top of this, then you need to
    > be able to take something off site. Realistically, thats a stack of
    > drives for a raid array, or a USB drive. That client I mentioned
    > previously with the 2TB data area takes 6 400Gig drives in a RAID 5
    > out of their backplane chassis and replaces them with a new set of
    > drives to start the snapshot process all over again. They keep one set
    > of drives off site. They swap the drives on an as needed basis, using
    > a 400Gig USB drive to backup the backup and take that off site nightly.
    >
    > The added benefit of this is that they can ship these drives to their
    > sister locations in a true disaster situation, or just to move a huge
    > amount of data between offices (Civil Engineers with tons of CAD
    > drawings). The other benefit is that the data is immediately usable.
    > No waiting for eons as a tape tries to find the file needed. Instant
    > access.
    >
    > So, when you say you want backup, think thru what you're trying to
    > protect against, and then get that set up.
    >
    Having considered your mindset, and knowing my client, I can
    confidentetly say that although they would like to SAY that they want a
    backup for a true dissaster, if I provide them with a quote for that
    service they will quickly change their mind. Your suggestion of in
    chasis drive backup, and not RAID seems very interesting, and I see your
    point where simple mirroring prooves useless for typical problems.

    But I'd like to know what technologies (for lack of a better word) do
    you utilize to do the snapshoting? If you prefer, a few suggested google
    queries would help.

    On a side not, I find it amazing that computer can take that much a beating. 

    -- 
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