sysadmins, what backup and disaster recovery do you use?

ibn_shaddad

Hey all

Planning to be a sysadmin in the coming months, I'm enrolled in Server 2012 instructor led class and will finish MCSE training in 6 months.

But that's not enough ofcourse, one of my weak points is recovery solutions.
My last job was as a IT desktop support for a small design business with like 7 computers in work group environment, no Windows server.

So I'm trying to know more about backup and restore solutions, disaster recovery...
Their differences and importance and personal thoughts and experiences


Thanks in advance

fuz1on

For Windows, I might be biased but Veeam.

I've used Veritas/Ghost before in enterprise and they work fine as well. The primary concern should figuring out a solution that will maximize ROI while satisfying HA and SLA contractual agreements.

cyberguypr

I have a soft spot for backups and enterprise data recovery. I really enjoyed my time handling BackupExec and NetBackup. Not many people seem to be interested in this area. If wanting to learn more I can recommend this book: Enterprise Systems Backup and Recovery: A Corporate Insurance Policy: Preston de Guise: 9781420076394: Amazon.com: Books. It's a little old but instead of focusing on the latest shiny and expensive products it revolves around the importance of the data protection lifecycle from an enterprise standpoint.

With the advent of virtualization and technologies such as snapshots, deduplication, continuous replication, cloud backups, and others the play field has evolved but the essence remains the same.

Key point to keep in mind: backups do not matter, only restores do.

iBrokeIT

CommVault Simpana 10

Arod95

Shadowprotect

techfiend

Veeam currently but would love to move over to hyper-v failover clustering+live replication. No backup for esxi supports both as far as I know and Veeam could really use always on\automatic failover.

NinjaBoy

We use Hyper-V replication and MS SCDPM

ibn_shaddad

Thank you all for your inputs.
quite a variety of names there, but Veeam and hyper-v replication seems to be the most common.

I should have access to hyper-v replica, and regarding Veeam I've just checked their website they have a free edition that I can start playing with then go with the advanced editions and use the 30 day free trial.

ibn_shaddad

cyberguypr wrote: »

I have a soft spot for backups and enterprise data recovery. I really enjoyed my time handling BackupExec and NetBackup. Not many people seem to be interested in this area. If wanting to learn more I can recommend this book: Enterprise Systems Backup and Recovery: A Corporate Insurance Policy: Preston de Guise: 9781420076394: Amazon.com: Books. It's a little old but instead of focusing on the latest shiny and expensive products it revolves around the importance of the data protection lifecycle from an enterprise standpoint.

With the advent of virtualization and technologies such as snapshots, deduplication, continuous replication, cloud backups, and others the play field has evolved but the essence remains the same.

Key point to keep in mind: backups do not matter, only restores do.

thanks for recommending the book, a little pricey, does it come as an ebook?

Deathmage

Acronis and Dell Appassure.

red.roadster

Any open source suggestions?

JoJoCal19

fuz1on wrote: »

I've used Veritas/Ghost before in enterprise and they work fine as well. The primary concern should figuring out a solution that will maximize ROI while satisfying HA and SLA contractual agreements.

Another past Veritas/Ghost user here. Used that at a small manufacturer with about 250 users/workstations. Also used an off-site tape rotation.

Verities

NetApp Virtual Storage Console for VM backups, VMware Site Recovery Manager for disaster recovery/business continuity, and NetApp Snapvault for physical machines.

discount81

Backup Exec 2014

I disliked Backup Exec for the longest time, but I find it has really improved in the latest version, especially since we removed tape backups, I rarely have any errors now, it is basically on set and forget, and a monthly swap out of disks.

I am curious if anyone uses ARCServe any more?

For a while ARCServe, NetBackup and Backup Exec were really the 2 major players, now there is so many products out there and I feel like ARCServe is not used as much.