Author Topic: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company  (Read 4768 times)

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Offline Bird

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Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« on: May 04, 2017, 11:32:06 AM »
Team
Got a mate who has been running backups onsite to a NAS.. I've told him he should look at offsite backups as if there is a fire etc the onsite backups are worthless and melted.

Dumb arse here didn't expect him to ask for recommendations (our work does to our own datacenter in US) and pricing

Anyone got any recommendations for companies?

He has got 1 quote but I don't know if it is reasonable - seems excessive monthly to me.

"Offsite Backup with CyberSecure – Cost $316.76 per month + $753ex one off fee + Setup.  This is a completely automated backup protecting both servers giving full redundancy.  This is the quickest option to recover from, and ensures that you are protected against any attack.  This is adaptable should data or number of servers change."

Thoughts/ recommendations???

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Offline paceman

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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #1 on: May 04, 2017, 12:16:09 PM »
a few questions:

how much data?
expectation of data size in the future?
what's his budget?
what type of data?  static?  databases?  whole server OS installations for immediate recovery?
expectation of recovery time?  hours? days?

have seen the amazon products (S3 & Glacier) work very well... reasonably priced...

https://aws.amazon.com/backup-recovery/

Glacier, in particular, is excellent value for long-term archival storage of static data... IMO...


the price he has been given doesn't seem overly ridiculous, depending on how much data he wants to back up and how quickly he needs to recover...


« Last Edit: May 04, 2017, 12:31:31 PM by paceman »

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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #2 on: May 04, 2017, 01:30:55 PM »
How much data? Bank on 1TB
Expectation of data size in the future?: Slow growth
What's ya budget?  The less the better
What type of data?  One server is data word docs, excel, images etc and databases. The other is the mail server.
Expectation of recovery time? hours? days? Hours to 1 day max. *


*I'd think nearly any online backup worth while would be nearly live for restore of files.
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Offline paceman

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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #3 on: May 04, 2017, 01:41:48 PM »
How much data? Bank on 1TB
Expectation of data size in the future?: Slow growth
What's ya budget?  The less the better
What type of data?  One server is data word docs, excel, images etc and databases. The other is the mail server.
Expectation of recovery time? hours? days? Hours to 1 day max. *


*I'd think nearly any online backup worth while would be nearly live for restore of files.

for the static/simple files (word, excel and images), even something like backblaze would be OK...

geez, you could even roll your own with owncloud... :)


databases and mail server a bit trickier...

also, do they have the upload capacity to be able to perform the initial seed for the backup and ongoing transfers?

backup time can impact usability of files being backed up, as well as reliability of those backups...


Offline Bird

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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #4 on: May 04, 2017, 01:49:45 PM »
Quote from: paceman
for the static/simple files (word, excel and images), even something like backblaze would be OK...
geez, you could even roll your own with owncloud... :)

Databases and mail server a bit trickier...

also, do they have the upload capacity to be able to perform the initial seed for the backup and ongoing transfers?

backup time can impact usability of files being backed up, as well as reliability of those backups...
yea I mentioned the bandwidth etc for the initial upload could really bollox them...
Same with the database and email backup (not sure what system they use for email)

never had to look this stuff up before as we are controlled by the mothership in US/France...  theres a world of bullShit to go through :(
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Offline paceman

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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #5 on: May 04, 2017, 01:53:04 PM »
yea I mentioned the bandwidth etc for the initial upload could really bollox them...
Same with the database and email backup (not sure what system they use for email)

never had to look this stuff up before as we are controlled by the mothership in US/France...  theres a world of bullShit to go through :(

do they need 'cloud' style offsite backups?

why not tapes or external HDD's? 

depending on sizes of mail and databases, 1TB is not a lot for either of those mediums and easy to take offsite...

Offline prodigyrf

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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #6 on: May 04, 2017, 01:58:56 PM »
He might want to do some comparison pricing with the Big M-  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-au/pricing/
But I know a couple of small businesses that use crashplan- http://au.pcmag.com/crashplan/28710/review/crashplan

One of them now is a lady RE conveyancer that works from a home office and when I was dealing with her one day she was having computer probs with her guru with remote access and restoring stuff from a backup hard drive she did each night. When I quizzically asked what would happen in the event of a fire or theft of such hardware the look on her face said it all and crashplan certainly have a seductive name  ;D

Horses for courses naturally and the lad uses subscription cloud accounting nowadays with immediate accountant access for any queries. 
« Last Edit: May 04, 2017, 02:02:27 PM by prodigyrf »
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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #7 on: May 04, 2017, 02:24:09 PM »
Quote from: paceman
do they need 'cloud' style offsite backups?
Why not tapes or external HDD's? 

Depending on sizes of mail and databases, 1TB is not a lot for either of those mediums and easy to take offsite...

It's the relying on someone to do the tapes that falls over for them and other companies
We used to have the tape backup gig here where the bloke would turn up Mondays to pickup the box of tapes and drop off a box of incremental tapes for the next week.
Its a PITA if someone goes on holidays, or you need a restore in a hurry or if the joint goes up in flames.. Think it was 200 for us to get a tape dropped back to us within 3-4 hours which we would bill the department for each time, so managers made sure they *needed* the file restored urgently
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Offline prodigyrf

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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #8 on: May 04, 2017, 02:49:39 PM »
Calling all retired IT persons on NBN FTTP in need of some hobby money?  ;D
There's no Great Evil conspiracy against consumers within engineering, manufacturing and supply. Just the many tradeoffs incurred to satisfy diverse tastes, priorities and wallets. But first comes all the insatiable Gummint eggsperts, nanny-staters and usual suspects.

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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #9 on: May 04, 2017, 02:53:48 PM »
Quote from: prodigyrf
Calling all retired IT persons on NBN FTTP in need of some hobby money?  ;D

;D ;D ;D ;D
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Offline ATC

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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #10 on: May 04, 2017, 03:06:36 PM »
I'd have though you want an Offsite Backup that you can then restore into a Cloud Service at that same Backup Provider.

It's not just a Hosted Backup, but the start of a Disaster Recovery solution.

Lose the company footy tips, and have to restore back, fine.
Server craps itself, or the  Air Con in the server room decides it time to drop it's contents onto the racks, then you want to be able to get going again for a month or two while new equipment is sorted out.

Needs to have a suitable RPO eg 2-4 hours, but the RTO also need to be there.

The RTO is an extra charge, but no point thinking about backups without thinking of the recovery...

I haven't been concerned about PC's, go to Harvry Norman with a Credit Card and buy new ones.

Good servers take time to get, then they have to be setup....


Offline MrCruza

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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #11 on: May 04, 2017, 03:41:44 PM »
We're rolling out Datto to some of our clients. Onsite NAS with offsite cloud. Don't know the pricing offhand but it's probably way more than the OP wants to spend.

Datto Nas

Basically it's a Linux based system running Shadowprotect.

None of the GOOD offsite backups come cheap. If nothing else the data uploads can be a killer. You need to be able to do the initial seed off a hard disk.
Cheers, John.




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Offline Bird

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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #12 on: May 04, 2017, 03:45:33 PM »
Quote from: MrCruza
None of the GOOD offsite backups come cheap. If nothing else the data uploads can be a killer. You need to be able to do the initial seed off a hard disk.

Agree.. Its probably worth while him calling few places and getting them to come out and sell their wares to his business and explain to him what the go is.
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Offline DrewXT

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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #13 on: May 04, 2017, 10:08:32 PM »
How about another NAS installed offsite, and replicate the data to Site B?  That could even be at your mates home if needs be...

I've used and recommend Crashplan, CloudBerry, Glacier, and OwnCloud...

All depends on the key questions paceman had already asked...

How much data, retention requirements, and how much they want to pay.

You also need to consider that Exchange (I'm assuming that's what their mail server is) is a prick to restore most of the time...

Another option would be to move their entire workload to Office365, and let Microsoft take care of backups, etc

Happy to have a bite to eat or a coffee next week and have a talk about a solution for them if you want (and no, I don't want to bloody implement or support it)

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« Last Edit: May 04, 2017, 10:11:13 PM by DrewXT »
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Offline boots-47

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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #14 on: May 04, 2017, 10:41:30 PM »
ATC is in the same headspace I am with volumes / rate of change, RTO and RPO requirements and business agreed SLA's for BCP / DR. 1TB is pretty small, so using a NAS with local tape and / or replicating to Azure or Office365 Onedrive should be fine. I have about 800GB of data at home (mostly home movies and photos) on a QNAP that I sync into my Onedrive account and works fine. Sure, if the QNAP (with RAID disks and UPS) craps itself and I lose all data, it would take some time to restore - but at the same time the data is available through Onedrive over the internet from any location.  You could also use a portable HDD or tape for local backups to have two copies of data at any one time - ie use Office 365 for ongoing sync and perform a weekly backup to the portable disk.

Cheers

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Offline D4D

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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #15 on: May 05, 2017, 06:41:14 AM »
How about just move the on-site servers to the cloud and configure another AZ (availability zone). For most workloads managing servers on physical hardware on-site is dead. Move your commodity apps like mail etc. to SaaS and use IaaS for the other stuff.
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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #16 on: May 05, 2017, 10:17:28 AM »
Quote from: DrewXT
Happy to have a bite to eat or a coffee next week and have a talk about a solution for them if you want (and no, I don't want to bloody implement or support it)
probably due for a coffee sometime next week if ya round



Thanks for ideas people..
I know 1 TB isn't huge in the scheme these days.. but my thoughts are something seemless, automated, not relying on people with tapes/drives etc...

I like Crashplan for simplicity of setup and restorations - its so user friendly
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Offline paceman

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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #17 on: May 05, 2017, 10:25:43 AM »
probably due for a coffee sometime next week if ya round



Thanks for ideas people..
I know 1 TB isn't huge in the scheme these days.. but my thoughts are something seemless, automated, not relying on people with tapes/drives etc...

I like Crashplan for simplicity of setup and restorations - its so user friendly

no such thing as set and forget... needs to be regularly tested... :)

if they can't handle simple stuff like drives or tapes, can they handle testing their backups?

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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #18 on: May 05, 2017, 10:38:54 AM »
Quote from: paceman
no such thing as set and forget... needs to be regularly tested... :)

There is set and forget for the backups... ours are fully automated for the backing up... no relying on some drone from sector 7G to change tapes ever... that's what I mean on that.. no tapes just simplicity.

The testing happens with anything down to backups to thumb drives :)

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Offline Ben.Archer

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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #19 on: May 05, 2017, 10:50:11 AM »
Until recently I was the ANZ pre-sales engineer for one of the cloud backup companies.

The big guys in this market are:

Code 42 with their Crashplan Software
Druva with inSync (Desktop / Phone & Tablet) & Phoenix (for server backups)

Both have good products with some slight differnces but well worth looking at.

You could also look at the like of Barracuda who have an onsite appliance that caches before backing upto the cloud.  However in this case it may be too complex / costly.

Be very careful of using Microsoft for backups as suggested above - Have a read of their user agreements and you will see that they specifically do not warrant the data to be backed up for one drive / office 365 and state that you need to take care of that yourself.
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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #20 on: May 05, 2017, 11:27:45 AM »
Quote from: Ben.Archer
Until recently I was the ANZ pre-sales engineer for one of the cloud backup companies.

The big guys in this market are:

Code 42 with their Crashplan Software
Druva with inSync (Desktop / Phone & Tablet) & Phoenix (for server backups)

Both have good products with some slight differnces but well worth looking at.

You could also look at the like of Barracuda who have an onsite appliance that caches before backing upto the cloud.  However in this case it may be too complex / costly.
yea, I'm leaning towards Crashplan for him.


Quote
Be very careful of using Microsoft for backups as suggested above - Have a read of their user agreements and you will see that they specifically do not warrant the data to be backed up for one drive / office 365 and state that you need to take care of that yourself.
its always in the fine print. :( But it is MS - all care no responsibility since 1980
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Offline Redcherokee

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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #21 on: May 05, 2017, 08:05:27 PM »
do they need 'cloud' style offsite backups?

why not tapes or external HDD's? 

depending on sizes of mail and databases, 1TB is not a lot for either of those mediums and easy to take offsite...

One of our old timers had a favourite saying "never underestimate the bandwidth of a Holden full of tapes".   

When you do want to upload a few T in either direction, bandwidth can be a very expensive limitation.   But, hey, it's all part of a thorough disaster plan - how do you get hold of something to load that data onto,  where do staff work, what is the minimum data they really need ...blah, blah, blah....


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Offline prodigyrf

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Re: Offisite backups - Med\largeish size Company
« Reply #22 on: May 06, 2017, 01:06:05 AM »
its always in the fine print. :( But it is MS - all care no responsibility since 1980
Yes but that's just a virtually mandatory ass covering disclaimer nowadays for all the ambulance chasers we've spawned. Like the foodstuffs with 'Warning this product may contain traces of peanuts" When I saw it on a packet of peanuts I bought from the greengrocers, I certainly hoped so  ???
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