John - have you completed a business impact analysis? Derived RTO and RPO? I think that will go a long way towards helping define technical options as well as the finances.
To try to design the technology first, in my opinion, is putting the proverbial horse before the cart. Kevin On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 10:28 AM, John Aldrich <[email protected]>wrote: > No, I have not narrowed it down. I initially hoped to get the project > done this year, but the economic downturn has hurt our cash flow such that > we are in a “holding pattern” on any “discretionary” spending and the SAN > project certainly falls into that category. > > > > You bring up a good point about what happens if you only have one SAN and > it goes down. That’s one reason I was thinking about having a “D/R” SAN at a > remote location. We do have a remote location about 30 minutes away. Another > option would be to co-lo the D/R SAN with someone. I just got off the phone > with a Global Crossing rep who wanted to talk to me about things they could > do for me, especially in the way of conferencing, etc. We got to talking > about the IT priorities for the next couple years and I mentioned the SAN > project and asked if they provided online backup services. She said that the > only thing they could offer would be co-lo space and that got me to thinking > that maybe that might be the best of both worlds… co-lo the D/R SAN at a > professional co-lo facility. > > > > [image: John-Aldrich][image: Tile-Tools] > > > > *From:* Martin Blackstone [mailto:[email protected]] > *Sent:* Tuesday, April 06, 2010 10:14 AM > *To:* NT System Admin Issues > *Subject:* RE: SAN question > > > > If you are just backing up to tape and your SAN goes down, where will you > restore too? Do you have a spare disk pool to use? > > If it was “me”, I would be looking at a SAN solution that offers its own > proven DR solution. > > Since I only know NetApp, they have a tool called SnapMirror that is built > into the OS. You pay for the license and plug in the serial. > > Then setup your DR targets and let it rip. If your primary SAN goes down, > you can do some clicks and bring the system online with all your data ready > to access. > > > > But you seem to be talking about a lot of things you want. You want DR, you > want clustering. If you cluster, maybe you only need to backup to tape. > Unless you want to buy a clustered SAN and a DR SAN. Of course if you are > going to have a DR SAN, I assume you have a DR location? > > I mean if the building burns to the ground do you have a location with the > resources needed to keep the company running? Not just hold the data? > > > > Have you narrowed this down to 3 vendors yet? > > > > *From:* John Aldrich [mailto:[email protected]] > *Sent:* Tuesday, April 06, 2010 6:52 AM > *To:* NT System Admin Issues > *Subject:* SAN question > > > > Guys, I’m still working on my storage needs, as the project I’ve been > working on probably won’t get approved until early next year at the > earliest. I was talking to a D/R consultant recommended by one of the folks > on this list. Unfortunately, he does not work with SMB clients, only large > clients such as Coca Cola, etc. > > > > I had been thinking of getting two SANs and having one replicate to the > other for D/R purposes. Most of our operations run off the AS/400 so that > would not be much affected (except if we are able to some how back up to the > SAN, which is unlikely with our current AS/400, due to disk space > limitations on the 400) one way or the other by the SAN project. The > aforementioned consultant suggested that we look into getting just one SAN > and a tape backup for it or online backup service instead of doing two SANs. > Most of the data on the Windows side of things would be hard to replace if > it died, so while it’s not “critical” to our operations, it’s still highly > important. > > > > What do you guys think of that suggestion? Would any of you guys do > something like that? Why or why not? > > Also, anyone know any D/R consultants in the North Georgia area who work > with SMB clients? > > > > [image: John-Aldrich][image: Tile-Tools] > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
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