Backup Solution recommendations please

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We're looking for a backup solution to backup to external USB HDD drives. We will have dedicated physical server to run the backup from.

Which one would you recommend?

We want to be able to backup Virtual Machines (Hyper-V VHDs), Exchange, DC, SQL Server and SharePoint some time later this year. BackupExec seems to be doing this all but I thought I'd ask wiser and more experienced colleagues on CertForums before I commit a purchase. (especially after searching and finding Acronis being described as better).

Software can use an agent (we don't mind).
In the worst scenario we can utilise Windows Server 2008 Backup to backup VHDs containing VM operating systems and use purchased backup solution to backup stateful data (Exchange, SQL).

What are your views on this topic?

Any advice much appreciated.
Thanks

 

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Get backup exec and backup exec system recovery the latter will image your C: Drives (so you can restore the actual server within minutes) and backup exec can back up all your actual data onto whatever media you like.

 

Thanks

How does Backup Exec handle Exchange store and SQL Server?

I don't think we want to run backup on virtual hosts. They'll be part of a cluster and same build so I think we'll just image one once it's build so no backup necessary. It's not that there is a lot to backup on them.

edit: just read your post again and that's exacly what you said. Sorry. I think we will use standard imaging software for that once we've decided which one to go for.

 

I would wait for a little while longer for DPM2010, it's in RC1 atm and won't be long.
One of the bad things about DPM is the poor Single User mailbox restore, it's not straight forward but it does work quite well with Exchange.

The thing with DPM is it requires a large amount of RAW disk, it's not formated at all and you would ideally want a SAN or SATA shelf attached to your DPM server to act as the storage.

 

Thanks.

DPM looks really good, however I if it's not released before we start the project I don't think we'll be able to wait for it.

Also can it run a backup to a device as opposed to "protecting data" in real-time as we need something that will let us backup around 1TB data off-site, preferably on a daily basis.

 

Yes it will also backup to tape, DPM 2007 is already out and is a decent product, a steep learning curve but worth doing. Not having played with DPM2010 yet I don't know if it's Exchange mailbox recovery is any better than DPM2007's, one thing I do like about DPM2010 tho is it's ability to backup workgroup machines rather than just Domain ones.

I do have to question the speed you will get from writing to USB devices tho, it's going to be quite horrendous if you're looking to backup large amounts of data on a daily basis

 

Well that's also a problem.
Given 480Mbps High Speed USB transfer rate and USB overhead, the transfer speed achieved would be around 25MB/s which would take 11 hours to back up 1TB of data.

However not all of that data would change on daily basis so I'd like something that does incremental (or more like updating only changed blocks of data) backups and update only new and modified items. DPM 2010 seems to do it by the looks of it.

 

I'd go for online backup. either to a remote site of yours or a subscribed hosted server (data centre ones)

 

Go for an onsite and off site backup.

We use both with customers, normally Backup Exec on site, for granular Mailbox restores etc.

Then off site as well for core servers.

 

I'm surprised people are recommending DPM so highly as we've had nothing but problems with DPM and how horrific and unreliable it is, Backup Exec is definitely a lot better.

 

We were thinking about it, but management is not really keen on the idea of trusting others with vulnerable data. Also we only have only one site so no multisite replication for us.

We have Buffalo NAS in place which we will carry on daily backups to (data, mailboxes and so on). Thing is that at the moment we're backing up lot less data (only on server, no VMs) but data is taken offsite daily on the tape while onsite backups go on the NAS.

How do you do offsite backups? Tape, external drives, online replication of some sort? How much data is there to take offsite?
That's what we have to do. Our tape drives is reaching capacity limit and while I think we could invest in new tape drive I'm not sure we want to. How long will it take to backup 1TB of data onto tape? Is it faster than USB HDDs?

 

What kind of issues are you having? Are you mixing the type of machines in your Protection Groups?
When I implemented DPM at a charity last year there was an initial teething issue with regards to getting the right PG's working and ensuring that SQL and Exchange data was being protected at the correct intervals. Once that was taken care of however DPM wasn't an issue at all.

I would be interested in finding out what kind of issues you're experiencing. Oh and whether this is DPM 2006 or DPM 2007. And whether you have SP'd and Hotfixed the environment.

 

Would DPM on-site protecting everything and a DPM on hosted vps protecting the on-site DPM via VPN work?
What bandwidth do I need to keep up with DPM block level replication?

edit: Seems impossible to find VPS with required disk space though

 

You would generally have a 2 server DPM environment where the offsite DPM server is backing up from the primary server, of course the amount of bandwidth required will depend on the amount of data you want to put across the pipe. Sometimes you may be better off doing your initial backup and then moving the secondary server offsite (as that will be the largest amount of data that needs to be replicated).

 

Thanks for suggestions Simon.

In the end I think we've decided to build backup box ourselves as we're having trouble finding branded servers with enough storage within our budget. Not the best solution, I know but DPM 2010 seems too tempting to give it a miss.
We'll go for 4 x 1TB SATA drives in RAID 10 for the storage pool with decent hardware RAID controller.
To maintain offsite backups we'll use Firestreamer to backup to USB drives and/or NAS.
After a while if we're happy with DPM we might get proper server and rent some rack space in a data centre to host second DPM there.

We've also considered backing up to Iron Mountain cloud but their system won't support DPM 2010 till August/September and annual cost works out between £4000 - £6000. For that kind of money I'd rather rent a rack space and stick our own box in there.

Opinions welcome

Firestreamer - http://www.cristalink.com/
DPM 2010 Blog Q&A - http://scdpm.blogspot.com/2010/01/dpm2010-rc-webcast-q.html