We have a separate primary and backup cluster running in two distinct
physical locations serving rbd images (totaling ~12TB at the moment) to
CIFS/NFS/iSCSI reshare hosts, serving clients . I do daily snapshots on
the primary cluster and then export-diff/import-diff on the backup
cluster, and then rotate the snapshots. This covers us if:

- Someone deletes data which has been picked up by the previous
snapshot. I can mount the snapshot and I or the user can recover the
affected file.
- We run into something like J-P, where I get stuck and lose data on the
primary cluster due to either a Ceph bug/error or mistake on my part.
- We lose the primary site: flood/fire, etc.

As a bonus, the backup cluster gives me a place to test
upgrades/configuration changes before committing to them on the
production system.

I think Hammer allows for synchronous RBD mirroring between clusters
(haven't played with that yet), and it looks like async mirroring is on
the roadmap for Infernalis:

 https://wiki.ceph.com/Planning/Blueprints/Infernalis/RBD_Async_Mirroring

-Steve

On 05/06/2015 01:31 PM, J-P Methot wrote:
> Case in point, here's a little story as to why backup outside ceph is
> necessary:
>
> I was working on modifying journal locations for a running test ceph
> cluster when, after bringing back a few OSD nodes, two PGs started
> being marked as incomplete. That made all operations on the pool hang
> as, for some reason, rbd clients couldn't read the missing PG and
> there was no timeout value for their operation. After spending half a
> day fixing this, I ended up needing to delete the pool and then
> recreate it. Thankfully that setup was not in production so it was
> only a minor setback.
>
> So, when we go in production with our setup, we are planning to have a
> second ceph for backups, just in case such an issue happens again. I
> don't want to scare anyone and I'm pretty sure my issue was very
> exceptional, but no matter how well ceph replicate and ensures data
> safety, backups are still a good idea, in my humble opinion.
>
>
> On 5/6/2015 6:35 AM, Mariusz Gronczewski wrote:
>> Snapshot on same storage cluster should definitely NOT be treated as
>> backup
>>
>> Snapshot as a source for backup however can be pretty good solution for
>> some cases, but not every case.
>>
>> For example if using ceph to serve static web files, I'd rather have
>> possibility to restore given file from given path than snapshot of
>> whole multiple TB cluster.
>>
>> There are 2 cases for backup restore:
>>
>> * something failed, need to fix it - usually full restore needed
>> * someone accidentally removed a thing, and now they need a thing back
>>
>> Snapshots fix first problem, but not the second one, restoring 7TB of
>> data to recover few GBs is not reasonable.
>>
>> As it is now we just backup from inside VMs (file-based backup) and have
>> puppet to easily recreate machine config but if (or rather when) we
>> would use object store we would backup it in a way that allows for
>> partial restore.
>>
>> On Wed, 6 May 2015 10:50:34 +0100, Nick Fisk <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> For me personally I would always feel more comfortable with backups on a 
>>> completely different storage technology.
>>>
>>> Whilst there are many things you can do with snapshots and replication, 
>>> there is always a small risk that whatever causes data loss on your primary 
>>> system may affect/replicate to your 2nd copy.
>>>
>>> I guess it all really depends on what you are trying to protect against, 
>>> but Tape still looks very appealing if you want to maintain a completely 
>>> isolated copy of data.
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: ceph-users [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
>>>> Alexandre DERUMIER
>>>> Sent: 06 May 2015 10:10
>>>> To: Götz Reinicke
>>>> Cc: ceph-users
>>>> Subject: Re: [ceph-users] How to backup hundreds or thousands of TB
>>>>
>>>> for the moment, you can use snapshot for backup
>>>>
>>>> https://ceph.com/community/blog/tag/backup/
>>>>
>>>> I think that async mirror is on the roadmap
>>>> https://wiki.ceph.com/Planning/Blueprints/Hammer/RBD%3A_Mirroring
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> if you use qemu, you can do qemu full backup. (qemu incremental backup is
>>>> coming for qemu 2.4)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ----- Mail original -----
>>>> De: "Götz Reinicke" <[email protected]>
>>>> À: "ceph-users" <[email protected]>
>>>> Envoyé: Mercredi 6 Mai 2015 10:25:01
>>>> Objet: [ceph-users] How to backup hundreds or thousands of TB
>>>>
>>>> Hi folks,
>>>>
>>>> beside hardware and performance and failover design: How do you manage
>>>> to backup hundreds or thousands of TB :) ?
>>>>
>>>> Any suggestions? Best practice?
>>>>
>>>> A second ceph cluster at a different location? "bigger archive" Disks in 
>>>> good
>>>> boxes? Or tabe-libs?
>>>>
>>>> What kind of backupsoftware can handle such volumes nicely?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks and regards . Götz
>>>> --
>>>> Götz Reinicke
>>>> IT-Koordinator
>>>>
>>>> Tel. +49 7141 969 82 420
>>>> E-Mail [email protected]
>>>>
>>>> Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg GmbH
>>>> Akademiehof 10
>>>> 71638 Ludwigsburg
>>>> www.filmakademie.de
>>>>
>>>> Eintragung Amtsgericht Stuttgart HRB 205016
>>>>
>>>> Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: Jürgen Walter MdL Staatssekretär im
>>>> Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst Baden-Württemberg
>>>>
>>>> Geschäftsführer: Prof. Thomas Schadt
>>>>
>>>>
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>>
>>
>>
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>
>
> -- 
> ======================
> Jean-Philippe Méthot
> Administrateur système / System administrator
> GloboTech Communications
> Phone: 1-514-907-0050
> Toll Free: 1-(888)-GTCOMM1
> Fax: 1-(514)-907-0750
> [email protected]
> http://www.gtcomm.net
>
>
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-- 
Steve Anthony
LTS HPC Support Specialist
Lehigh University
[email protected]

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