Windows question

Small business getting itself more and more into the computer has
decided it is about time to go down the off site back up for business
critical data.


What should they be asking their computer whizz to install? Who should
they be talking to? We are not talking full on data recovery systems
here, just the basics above and beyond taking a floppy disk home once a
month.

 

Assuming they use normal fileservers, a decent DLT or similar tape
system, a package like Arcserve if it's NT based kit, and a contract
with one of the local security firms to retain offsite tapes is probably
the way forward.

 

Ginge has pretty much covered it. As an interim, USB external drive might
be worth considering
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Ginge wrote

Dunno about NT but it is Win 2k. I think it is peer to peer stuff for 3
machines

 

Ahh smaller then.

Either:

A - put a cheap and cheerful fileserver with a tape drive in, maybe
running linux and Samba just for file serving and what have you.

or

B - Go to PC World and buy a USB (or Parallel port if they're old PCs)
connectable external tape drive, that way they can back up weekly, but
people *will* forget or decide they cannot be arsed..


And as before, get the tapes off site regularly.

 

http://www.e-smith.com , worth a look .

 

atec77 wrote

Look fuckwit. If it is too fucking hard for you to grasp something as
simple as posting your fucking replies at the bottom and snipping the
extraneous stuff do you honestly thin anyone is going to take your
opinion/advice seriously around here?

Think about it.


Ta bye the way.

 

In what way are CDs "bigger" than tapes?
Other than physical dimensions that is.

 

A pertinent tale for you sir. Many moons ago I managed to persuade a
division of the company that I was working for that they really should keep
regular offsite backups of the data in their little autonomous 'system' that
they had bought. I offered them space in our firesafe which was in a
separate building. Anyway, one day their office went up in flames, quite
literally, so of course their computer equipment and 'system' was lost. "Ah"
says I as the replacement computers were wheeled in, "so where's your
backup?". You'll no doubt have already guessed the answer:
"It was in my desk drawer".

Ho well, kiss that one goodbye then.

Definitely go for a managed off site solution IMO, cos you can't rely on non
infrastructure staff to play by the rules and maintain proper off site
backups IME.

BTW if you can offer up any tips as to how to persuade a small company that
it really needs to do this then my gf would be all ears, she works for a
small firm of solicitors who don't even keep a backup of their server data
let alone an off site one and she's not happy about it :-/

 

Zobo Kolonie wrote:

Make a back up yourself, then trash their server ? :>
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In the way that Vic lives in a world that bears no relation to the one the
rest of us live in. I mean - have you seen some of the hilarious shit
he's posted?!

 

I had an argument with the boss where I used to work about off-site backups.
He reckoned the fire safe was adequate, and wasn't swayed by me pointing out
that, in the event of a fire, the safe would either be swaying about on the
top floor of a burned-out 13-storey building, or would have descended with
some force into the street. In either case, the backup would have been
useless. I eventually started taking a tape home on Fridays, and just
didn't tell him.

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On Wed, 25 Feb 2004 21:54:00 -0000, Ginge
<> bored us all completely to death
with wittery prose along the lines of:

Pretty much agree with wot you said. But banks also look after tapes
too, so there's another option.

 

Trouble with physical security like this is that someone has to do
remember to do something.

I automatically back-up my main business PC onto my Linux server (which
has mirrored disks). Then these zipped archives are transferred over the
internet to another server. The whole thing is automated and includes e-
mail notifications of success/failure.

Works for me.

 

I worked on BT's Global Transport Network. They specified "Geographic
Redundancy" for their Sub-Network Management Systems (my "thing"). Cost
lots more. Provides true failover in case of calamity. Good stuff.

Then put them next to each other in the NOC Comms room in Hilversum.

 

That's buttons, but what does it cover in terms of capacity/cycles etc.
They would need to have the available bandwidth of course but if DSL covers
their volumes it has to be really interesting option.

 

Citibank in Lewisham kept the backup generators for their 7th floor machine
room in the basement alongside the main power inlet to the building.
Which was nice when a fire broke out in the basement.

 

The last place I worked at we used to shadow all the disks across 40KM of
dark fibre. We used to regularly swap the active machine from one site to
another without the users knowing.

You really don't want the backups kept anywhere near the actual system
because you could have the situation where no matter how safe the tapes are
you cannot actually get near them due to bomb threats, terrorist alerts
etc. The place I work at the moment keeps the backup tapes in two separate
locations each about 10 miles from the office.

Thats what happens when "business managers" get involved.

 

If you are that sensitive and own no SOH I suggest you <unsubscribe> before
your ego gets hurt

 

*chortle*
I found BT much more sophisticated than that when I worked for them TBH. The
infrastructure protection for the Cellular network was quite impressive.