Backup to colocation

  • Good morning to all. I have been requesting help all over the place (SQL Server Central) regarding disaster and recovery issues.

    Here is the new one, by the way thank you to all for the very much appreciated assistance!! To the point.

    I do daily backups to disk and then the regular network backup to tape (i learned the hard way, that this could take a couple of extra seconds, but it's the safest way to always have healthy backups)

    I need to run a full backup (create folder for each database, etc) to the colocation server. Even though, I am mapped to the colocation server and try to, either create a backup device or maintenace plan, I cannot see the colocation server. I can see other servers in the main office and run backups without any problem. Any suggestions?

    Do I have to install SQL Server at the colocation to be able to see it? It really doesn't make any sense to me, because I am not doing anything with SQL Server yet. I will install it some time this coming week, but at this point-in-time the only thing I need is to send my backups to a directory at the collocation server.

    Thank you for your help!

  • A few questions, just to try and understand the environment.

    The colocation server, is it located in your main office?

    Is it in the same domain?

    Can you ping it?

    K. Brian Kelley

    bkelley@sqlservercentral.com

    http://qa.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/bkelley/

    K. Brian Kelley
    @kbriankelley

  • Brian is on a good track. This is likely a security issue.

    I did the reverse, sending from the colocaiton to our office, but I choose FTP. It was cleaner than worrying about the mapped drive issue.

    Steve Jones

    steve@dkranch.net

  • Thank you.

    The co-location servers are at a different location miles aay from the main office.

    I can ping those servers without any problem.

    I did send files from my main office servers to the colocation servers ok. I can bakup to disk to a different server in my main office but I cannot see the colocation servers at the colocation when I try to backup to those. I did backup to disk in one of my servers and then send thos backup files to the colocation using ftp. It did work, but ... Still the issue of why I cannot see the drive where I sent those backups at SQ: Server. Thank you again

  • How are you transferring? By IP or FQDN (use FQDN) or by hostname? If hostname, then you might have name resolution problems. Setting up a good WINs setup is a little tricky and this may be your issues. It can cause sporadic results.

    Steve Jones

    steve@dkranch.net

  • Thanks Steve. We are doing it by IP.

  • Can you map a drive to the colocation server by using the net use command (from the Command Prompt)? For instance:

    
    
    net use j: \\<ip address>\Share

    K. Brian Kelley

    bkelley@sqlservercentral.com

    http://qa.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/bkelley/

    K. Brian Kelley
    @kbriankelley

  • Thank you. Sorry I did not answer before, but this colocation is driving me nuts! I spent the last two days there.

    Yes I can use net use and map the colocation servers to the main office and viceversa. Still cannot run backups to colocation. I finished the backups and move them to the colocation folder I set for this purpose.

    I am now in the process of installing Double-Take (have you heard about it?), but still puzzles me, why I could not run backups to colocation.

    Thank you for all your assistance.

    Very much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • I am running into the same problem. According to Microsoft support site, the machine that you are performing the backup must be part of a domain. If that is the case, just simply create a backup name like:

    \\servername\drive\folder\backup.bak. I tested this concept with a domain-user machine and it worked good. My only problem is the majority of the machines in my shop are running Win2000 Server but using workgroup instead of domain servers. I am still trying to figure out how to do this under a Workgroup environment. If you know any other tricks, please let me know. Thanks. Don

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