This is a general answer that addresses many of your points, but not all...
After doing DR and dealing with early LTO's in my career: 1. Good quality, not necessarily expensive, tapes are worth their weight in gold. Tapes failing, loosing user data, is both expensive and horrible for the customer and your reputation. Tapes have a limited lifetime (number of cycles, number of years/months, etc) that is shorter than many want to imagine. Warranties only cover media cost at best, not the data or your time, but they indicate how much the manufacturer believes in the media they are providing. Still handle the media well (watch storage and transportation methods and temperatures). 2. Not having a tape library will work you to death, but it can, and has, been done successfully. 3. Software is important, but no matter the cost, understand the software you have. Use it regularly and test your backups. Don't be afraid to change software, but you may have significant $$ expense when you do, so expect to have your decision challenged. My suggestion is do a small DR backup, then use it to do a bare metal restore. .... It NEVER goes by the book, This is WHY you must truly understand your backup software. I was known to do this several times until it worked smoothly. Many folks thought I was nuts, but it allowed me to sleep at night. 4. I found it VERY helpful to have a bound, paper notebook, and do an excruciatingly detail log while doing the backups, AND doing the restores. It allows for you to do your own postmortem, to define and refine your processes. This makes the next time much easier. I reviewed and re-wrote the notes (to ensure continuity, completeness, and readability), eventually turning them into a 'procedures' or 'best practices' book I used for me. I found it helpful and made sure I or co-workers didn't miss a step. 5. You might want to use different software for daily backups vs DR backups. There are differences on how you access and used the tapes/data. It is possible to use the same backups, but it was more difficult/took longer for me when I used the same software. These are just my suggestions after 15 years of doing backups and disaster recovery (starting my career with 2400 ft 256bpi 7 track tapes, then 9 track using: 800, 1600 and 6250 bpi tapes eventually, to 8mm tapes, to DLT, to LTO 1, and LTO 2)) . They all worked and were state of the art at their time of life. They all have problems. There is no silver bullet. -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NLUG" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nlug-talk?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NLUG" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
