January 27, 2009 at 10:09 pm
I have been searching online for a good remote backup solution, and I find the offerings very sparse when it comes to online backup of sql databases (or maybe I don't know how to search).
The two products I did find and was/am considering are Mozy Pro and Storage Guardian. There are some other products I found, but their cost is overwhelmingly prohibitive ($250/month for 25gb).
I am looking to backup an instance with about 16gb of data (about 3gb of text, 13gb of images) that is growing steadily. It is for a physician practice with a paperless office (i.e. tons of scanning).
Currently the office does a full backup weekly, diff backup daily, and log backups throughout the day. A full backup compressed (7z post backup) is 9.6gb.
I was also looking at pure online backup solutions, but that would mean uploading 10gb every week (over a 1mb upload, not very desirable).
Ideally the backup online is for redundancy -- if a disaster would happen, i would onsite recovery first (given the amount of time it would take to download a backup online).
Any suggestions? Your help and comments are much appreciated.
I also thought about trimming the database (archiving records of patients not seen in x years), but still formulating how I would do this.
January 27, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Have you considered using a tape backup in conjunction with a service that picks up, stores tapes offsite, and returns them on a rotating basis?
January 28, 2009 at 9:49 am
Hard Drive Media was looked at as an option; currently we back up to another computer on the LAN and before that we were backing to an external drive (via USB). we were also looking at the RDX system
The main problem is the human component. with the external hard drive, the idea was that it would be backed up and then removed and taken offsite. the backups were happening, but no one took the drive with them, rendering the system useless (since it was attached to the server and in my opinion the main benefit of off site storage is to prevent against natural disasters, i.e. fire/flood).
i don't really understand the benefit of tape over hard drive, considering it is more expensive, and it isn't any faster, and it looks like it is a pain to do any sort of seek/restore on it
but basically i'm looking for an automatic type solution that can give me the benefits of offsite storage without enforcing that somebody actively manage the backup media
January 28, 2009 at 10:23 am
You will probably need more bandwidth to be able to backup over the Internet and need some hosting service to provide a server you can send the data to. Also, you will need some transfer method that is restartable from the point of failure after network problems, since you are sending such a large volume of data.
January 28, 2009 at 10:44 am
Yup, I understand the bandwidth issue -- but I was wondering if people had suggestions as to which companies would be able to provide the services your are outlining.
January 28, 2009 at 11:42 am
Iron Mountain in the US does tape and document storage. you can contract with them to swing by your office and pick up tapes every day. They can even rotate them in and out (keep them offsite for 7 days).
That's the issue.
an online solution works, but you will always have the bandwidth issue. You could contract for a 2nd line for backups only, but that may or may not provide you the protection you need.
Tape is great density, and in some ways more reliable for offsite storage. You could have someone take HDDs offsite (I'm sure Iron Mtn would do this), but I get inherently more concerned about those moving around a lot. But you could set up a rotation of 10 drives that move in and out of the office.
Someone has to be responsible for this. Someone should check it daily. I used to change tapes daily, and then when I did, the one from last night went in my laptop bag. That way it went out with me every night since I tended not to forget my laptop. Came back the next day, but it was offsite in case of over night issues.
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January 28, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Interesting -- thanks for your input.
i have been wavering with defining a good offsite backup policy for some time and I thought an online solution would be appropriate -- but now it seems like i'm shifting back towards a hard drive/tape drive solution.
with regard to hard drive solutions, do you know anything about hardtape (hardtape.com) or rdx quikstor -- any experience with either?
thanks
January 28, 2009 at 4:53 pm
A couple of options we looked (are looking at) are
Using a SafeSentry USB hard drive. This is both fire and water proof. A bit heavy to carry home every night.
Our data centre provider also provides a managed backup service using VBAK. VBAK includes a sqlserver agent and it's clever enough to only send the changed data over the internet each night. For example on Sunday night it only backed up 100MB of our 12GB database. It then compressed the backup down to 33MB before storing it in a "vault". Pricey!
David
January 28, 2009 at 4:58 pm
I'm sorry what do you mean by pricey -- you didn't list a cost?
your solution is exactly the kind of thing we are looking for; if you don't mind me asking, what company are you using that is able to provide this kind of incremental backup and were there other companies that you were considering?
January 28, 2009 at 10:45 pm
So, having shifted gears to look at onsite portable backup solutions, I found something that doesn't sacrifice ease of use. Just wondering what your opinions are.
1. all backups are stored on an on-lan computer (full, diff, transaction logs)
2. in the morning person plugs in external drive, executes script from autorun menu which will synchronize drive with contents of folder on the on-lan computer
3. before person leaves, they will synch again to update all logs for the day (there won't be little if any edits to the database after office hours)
4. rinse repeat
i think the thing that i like is using the autorun script allows for an easy simple gui solution, without having to train somebody to use a new backup software. all the backups are managed behind the scenes.
i'm using truecrypt to encrypt the external drive and backupkey to facilitate the backup (though I could just use a batch file/vbs script); advantage of the software is it allows for one to synchronize the folder thus ensuring at least 3 weeks of backup are retained on the external drive
TCO: $19.99 for the backupkey license + cost of external hard drive
// now i'm just debating whether the speed improvements of an esata interface are worth it, or if i should just stick with a self-powered usb drive
any clear disadvantages?
January 29, 2009 at 12:02 am
If the backups are small enough, and the sizes you mention are, buy 32GB flash drives or SD cards, and copy the data to them. Have someone mail the backups to a storage site, and have them returned a week later. The new solid state drives would work too, and would eliminate any concern about damage from transport.
January 29, 2009 at 1:08 am
N G (1/28/2009)
I'm sorry what do you mean by pricey -- you didn't list a cost?your solution is exactly the kind of thing we are looking for; if you don't mind me asking, what company are you using that is able to provide this kind of incremental backup and were there other companies that you were considering?
We are UK based and it's a company called InTechnology (based in Harrogate and London). They host our webfacing servers in their datacenter and provide a good service. The price they quoted us included a lease line for managing their servers etc, so I'm not sure what the cost would have been for just the backup option. ( I would rather not upset them by quoting a price and getting it very wrong! :))
January 29, 2009 at 10:47 pm
no problem, i was able to find their website after trying a bunch of different search terms.
i think i've gone with a homemade solution instead which i think will be more than sufficient for our needs, though it won't provide "continuous data protection"
however, i would appreciate your comments, especially if you think there are gaping holes in my newly devised backup plan.
just to summarize
backups are done (and were being done) to local on-lan computer (non-server) at the following intervals:
1. full every week
2. diff ever day
3. transaction every 1 hour during the workday
backups are moved to external harddrive
1. in the morning (to allow transferring of full/diff during the workday)
2. right before leaving (to re-sync transaction logs backed up during the day)
3. hard drive is moved off-site
-- I am considering putting one or two drives in a rotation system
on-lan computer retains backups for 3 weeks, external harddrive retains backups until disk is full
external harddrive is encrypted and password protected
to facilitate end user use, backup is a one-click operation and logged (custom vbs script i just put together + ICE Mirror software)
I know this post started off asking for suggestions for online storage, but given the hassles associated with online backup, as well as the suggestions posed by the forum, I have shifted direction
i am giving thought to the use of flash or some other solid state media due to worries of damage through shock/abuse -- as well as rugged enclosures/drives such as LaCie rugged harddrive or HardTape
January 30, 2009 at 11:07 am
We use a service from U.S. Data Trust (http://www.usdatatrust.com/service/online-backup-service-benefits.asp). They do full/incremental remote backups and the service is configurable via a web interface. I'm not sure about the cost however.
January 30, 2009 at 4:34 pm
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