Sever backups can be rough, I'm in test lab so I'm not backing up crucial data. What I do is just for time saving. I can restore a PC in less then 5 min to a base OS with various configs state vs reinstalling Windows in 30-40min+ config time. Servers are just as easy but it may take 20 min instead of 5 to restore.
As far as a customers data goes that's a whole other story. But the key is not backing up apps/OS, just data IMHO. While I will grab a system state backup I hardly ever backup program files or system32 more then once. or Only after major changes. Most apps are easy enough to reinstall and restoring the system state on top of that takes care of most configs. Every customer can be different. Mine may be different then yours. I would think that your customers data is changing and frequently. How long do you expect a complete backup (OS/apps/data) to be good for? How many times do you want to visit a site in one week? To backup an entire server it usually needs to be offline. How much time will that take? When is it convenient for the customer? Point being this should be automated. It sounds like your customer needs a backup solution. If it were my customer I would sell then a copy of Backup Exec and install a Tape/DVD drive. Setup scripts and tell whomever get stuck with the job that when they come in in the morning they need to swap the tape/disk. I would then check on it periodically. I pitch the whole solution. if they have Internet access I try and sell a sonicwall with VPN access. The boss likes getting in form home and so can I then. Sell then a monthly service contract so many hours of on site + routine maintenance via remote. everyone wins. However none of that is OSS. I have done some perl scripting that does incremental backups and put that in the windows task scheduler. If I was to come up with a complete OSS solution for backing up Windows enviorments I would put in a dedicated linux box with a enough storage space on the network. Then either though the built in Windows backup feature save to that box for OS/system state backups and then maybe using rsync do something where the linux box checked network shares for daily data backups. My experience is that it is hard to do a full backup for a customer without taking them offline and usually the times it ok with them to to do that are when they are closed which is generally the time that I sleep. On 3/16/07, Roger Rustad <[email protected]> wrote:
> If you are talking about backing up PCs in the field I would just a > Ghost CD, or a specially built floppy if you need to add additional > drives. Most are on the CD. Carry a USB external hard drive. Put a > plum drive in it and the Ghost CD will recognize and be able to save > to it at a decent speed. I did this all the time in Vegas for my > customers. I would then burn the data to a DVD or CDs for them to keep > if they wanted it. Which I did after the service call. Actually i > still do that at home for my own backups. I'm hoping for a solution that lets me image a whole server with, say, DVD-size chunk files. I could burn those later (after I moved them off my USB or firewire hard drive) and then when disaster hits, boot to the first DVD and keep feeding it DVDs until it was restored. So far, I haven't found an open source solution for this yet. _______________________________________________ 909linux mailing list [email protected] http://909linux.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/909linux
