Re: backup strategy - followup

[LEO]

> From: Jon Gardner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Reply-To: "retro-talk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 12:21:08 -0500
> To: retro-talk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: backup strategy - followup
> 
>> FTP:ing stuff off-site seems little overkill for us, but if the VXA we
>> bought was shipped with an autoloader I wouldn't look in to getting a
>> tapedrive with an autoloader...!
>> 
>> Actually, I don't like backups that are so much human dependent as the one
>> we use. Changing tapes daily can't be scripted and that's why it sucks... ;-)

Hi,

Why don't you like the auto-loader? We have about 160gb data that requires
to be backed up every friday night UNATTENDED, so the autoloader was the way
to go for us, but other than that why don't you like the autoloaders?

Thks
Leo



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Re: backup strategy - followup

[Jon Gardner]

on 9/14/2000 8:49 AM, jakob krabbe at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

>> We use a 13-tape rotation. We swap tapes during the day on Monday, full
>> (recycle) backup on Monday night, normal backups Tue-Sat nights. In
>> addition, we have an FTP server offsite with one FTP backup set on it. Every
>> two weeks we do a recycle backup to it over the weekend (takes anywhere from
>> 24-36 hours, typically) with normal backups every evening.
> 
> Seems like you're a step ahead of us...
> 
> Exactley how much data are we refering to here? What bussines are you in,
> and what type of tapes are we takling about?
>
> We're an advertisement agency, backing up clients only (at the moment we
> have no server) and approximatley 20 - 30 GB as total... Gee, I have no clue!

We have a similar amount of data. A full backup plus a week's worth of
partials fits on a single VXA tape with room to spare (so far, anyway).

> FTP:ing stuff off-site seems little overkill for us, but if the VXA we
> bought was shipped with an autoloader I wouldn't look in to getting a
> tapedrive with an autoloader...!
> 
> Actually, I don't like backups that are so much human dependent as the one
> we use. Changing tapes daily can't be scripted and that's why it sucks... ;-)

Exactly, which is why we went to the VXA from our DDS-3. It all needs to fit
on one tape in order to be easy. You don't have to FTP offsite necessarily;
if you have another building, or even just a server on the other side of the
same building, that will get you a little more security. The farther the
physical separation, the better.

<><
Jon L. Gardner '89, Computer Systems Manager 
Texas A&M University Dept. of Food Services 
Tel 979.458.1839 * Fax 979.845.2157 * Hip 979.229.4323
PGP public key available at 





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Re: backup strategy - followup

[Julia Frizzell]

At 4:00 PM +0200 9/14/00, jakob krabbe wrote:
>  >As it stands right now, we've just made a complete switch to new
>>tapes for the Monday-Thursday backups, and we started this with new
>>tapes in March. I should also mention that we only backup a user's
>>Documents folder, and they are instructed to put anything
>>work-related that needs to be saved in there. We also do the
>>bookmarks.html file. Everything else is (mostly) standard for
>>applications, so if there is a problem, we can restore a user
>>relatively easily.
>
>So you don't have a server to put all you work on as well?

Actually, we do, and those are part of the normal backup. However, 
it's just really starting to come into more use...when I got here 
(Feb. 99), hardly anyone was using it.

>We backup *everything* on every mac client. PC's are just selected folders.
>(Gee I think windows is such a crappy OS, still it's the only OS I've used
>for the past three years!)

We have so few Windows boxen here that there isn't much to backup on 
them. They are mostly servers, and we specify which specific folders 
are backed up on those.

>I have found out that microsoft outlook on macs are extremely hd comsuming
>since all attatchments that are sendt nad recived are saved in one giant
>file! We oftten send xAds to news magazines and that mail-file alone can
>easily take up a couple of gigs of our backup...

Brown uses Eudora as its standard email program, so we just store the 
Eudora Folder (not the app folder) in the user's documents folder.

And we also highly encourage our users to delete attachments regularly.

And lastly, I've excluded any file ending in .mp3 from *all* of our backups. ;)

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Julia Frizzell
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[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.netspace.org/~glyneth
http://www.theblackroad.org
"Insert pithy quote here."


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Re: backup strategy - followup

[jakob krabbe]

>As it stands right now, we've just made a complete switch to new 
>tapes for the Monday-Thursday backups, and we started this with new 
>tapes in March. I should also mention that we only backup a user's 
>Documents folder, and they are instructed to put anything 
>work-related that needs to be saved in there. We also do the 
>bookmarks.html file. Everything else is (mostly) standard for 
>applications, so if there is a problem, we can restore a user 
>relatively easily.

So you don't have a server to put all you work on as well?

We backup *everything* on every mac client. PC's are just selected folders.
(Gee I think windows is such a crappy OS, still it's the only OS I've used
for the past three years!)

I have found out that microsoft outlook on macs are extremely hd comsuming
since all attatchments that are sendt nad recived are saved in one giant
file! We oftten send xAds to news magazines and that mail-file alone can
easily take up a couple of gigs of our backup...

thanx,

/ jakob


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Re: backup strategy - followup

[jakob krabbe]

>We use a 13-tape rotation. We swap tapes during the day on Monday, full
>(recycle) backup on Monday night, normal backups Tue-Sat nights. In
>addition, we have an FTP server offsite with one FTP backup set on it. Every
>two weeks we do a recycle backup to it over the weekend (takes anywhere from
>24-36 hours, typically) with normal backups every evening.

Seems like you're a step ahead of us...

Exactley how much data are we refering to here? What bussines are you in,
and what type of tapes are we takling about?

We're an advertisement agency, backing up clients only (at the moment we
have no server) and approximatley 20 - 30 GB as total... Gee, I have no clue!


FTP:ing stuff off-site seems little overkill for us, but if the VXA we
bought was shipped with an autoloader I wouldn't look in to getting a
tapedrive with an autoloader...!

Actually, I don't like backups that are so much human dependent as the one
we use. Changing tapes daily can't be scripted and that's why it sucks... ;-)

thanx,

/ jakob


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Re: backup strategy - followup

[Julia Frizzell]

At 2:57 PM +0200 9/14/00, jakob krabbe wrote:
>  >That is what I do. I have a "laptop backup" tape that runs off a
>>backup server from 9:00 to 3:00, then at 3:00 I switch to my nightly
>>backup tape (changes depending on the night, and the week).
>
>Sounds reasonable. I think I'll tune in my server clock to someting similar.
>
>>And yes, if you're backing up everything to one tape, and recycling
>>it, then you are erasing what the server did during the day.
>
>Just checking, reverse is not true? My overnight backup is not overwritten
>during the day...?

It all depends on what type of backup you're doing.

A Normal Backup appends to new data to the tape.

A Recycle Backup erases the tape and starts over.

A New Media Backup makes a new backup set on new media.

[good descriptions are on page 60-61 of the copy of the manual I 
have, which I think was 4.2]

>Also, which tape of the week do you save? I have two "monday tapes" that I
>cyckle and I'm planning to increase that to four tapes... I'm still in
>backup-tune-in-mode and I have a feeling mondays are not the best days...??
>
>What day works best for you?

Well, I inherited the backup system from my predecessor, and I will 
probably change it if we get our funding grant renewed in December. 
What we do currently is this:

Week 1 - Normal backup, Monday through Thursday, on a tape for each 
day. On Friday we do a recycle backup that copies everything.

Week 2 - same as Week 1, with a different set of tapes.

Weekends currently do a full server backup to hard drives. This is 
one of the things we'll change with the refunding...getting an 
autoloader or something to do the server backup/tape change on the 
weekends.

We also use a separate tape for laptop backups during the day (as 
mentioned earlier).

As it stands right now, we've just made a complete switch to new 
tapes for the Monday-Thursday backups, and we started this with new 
tapes in March. I should also mention that we only backup a user's 
Documents folder, and they are instructed to put anything 
work-related that needs to be saved in there. We also do the 
bookmarks.html file. Everything else is (mostly) standard for 
applications, so if there is a problem, we can restore a user 
relatively easily.

-- 
---
Julia Frizzell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.netspace.org/~glyneth
http://www.theblackroad.org
"Insert pithy quote here."


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Re: backup strategy - followup

[Jon Gardner]

on 9/14/2000 7:57 AM, jakob krabbe at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> Also, which tape of the week do you save? I have two "monday tapes" that I
> cyckle and I'm planning to increase that to four tapes... I'm still in
> backup-tune-in-mode and I have a feeling mondays are not the best days...??
> 
> What day works best for you?

We use a 13-tape rotation. We swap tapes during the day on Monday, full
(recycle) backup on Monday night, normal backups Tue-Sat nights. In
addition, we have an FTP server offsite with one FTP backup set on it. Every
two weeks we do a recycle backup to it over the weekend (takes anywhere from
24-36 hours, typically) with normal backups every evening.

<><
Jon L. Gardner '89, Computer Systems Manager 
Texas A&M University Dept. of Food Services 
Tel 979.458.1839 * Fax 979.845.2157 * Hip 979.229.4323
PGP public key available at 





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Re: backup strategy - followup

[jakob krabbe]

>That is what I do. I have a "laptop backup" tape that runs off a 
>backup server from 9:00 to 3:00, then at 3:00 I switch to my nightly 
>backup tape (changes depending on the night, and the week).

Sounds reasonable. I think I'll tune in my server clock to someting similar.

>And yes, if you're backing up everything to one tape, and recycling 
>it, then you are erasing what the server did during the day.

Just checking, reverse is not true? My overnight backup is not overwritten
during the day...?

Also, which tape of the week do you save? I have two "monday tapes" that I
cyckle and I'm planning to increase that to four tapes... I'm still in
backup-tune-in-mode and I have a feeling mondays are not the best days...??

What day works best for you?

thanx,

/ jakob


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Re: backup strategy - followup

[Julia Frizzell]

At 9:53 AM +0200 9/14/00, jakob krabbe wrote:
>Discussed on this list earlier:
>
>Run retrospect server on portables during day and stationaries dyring night
>where backup source = VXA.
>
>---
>
>If I change tape in the morning, doesn't the recykled nigh backup overwrite
>the portables!?
>
>Maybe I'm better off changing the tape at night after the portables have
>been backed up but before the nighshift starts?

That is what I do. I have a "laptop backup" tape that runs off a 
backup server from 9:00 to 3:00, then at 3:00 I switch to my nightly 
backup tape (changes depending on the night, and the week).

And yes, if you're backing up everything to one tape, and recycling 
it, then you are erasing what the server did during the day.

--
Julia Frizzell
User Consultant/Analyst
The Education Alliance
Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory at Brown University
222 Richmond Street, Suite 300
Providence, Rhode Island  02903-4226
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
401.274.9548 x311 or 800.521.9550 x311
401.421.7650 (fax)
http://www.lab.brown.edu


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