Backup AND Recovery. Trust me, the second one won't work without the first, but the second is done poorly, you'll still have lots of grief and pain...
*ASB *(My XeeSM Profile) <http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker> *Exploiting Technology for Business Advantage...* * * On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 10:57 AM, Raper, Jonathan - Eagle < jra...@eaglemds.com> wrote: > +100,000,000 > > > > Who cares about your High Availability & redundancy if you don’t have a ** > ROCK_SOLID_BACKUP_PLAN**. > > > > You need these books: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/701 > > > > Curtis **KNOWS** his stuff, and you (as well as all the rest of us, if we > haven’t already) would benefit from his knowledge and experience on the > subject, less we experience an RGE… [1] > > > > HTH… > > Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE > Technology Coordinator > Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA* > *jra...@eaglemds.com* > *www.eaglemds.com > > [1] Resume Generating Event > ------------------------------ > > *From:* Jeff Steward [mailto:jstew...@gmail.com] > *Sent:* Friday, September 24, 2010 10:49 AM > > *To:* NT System Admin Issues > *Subject:* Re: SAN question > > > > What is your current backup solution? > > > > -Jeff Steward > > On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 10:21 AM, John Aldrich < > jaldr...@blueridgecarpet.com> wrote: > > Well, my (admittedly limited) understanding is that at the low-end SANs > have > a lot of overlap with NAS and that they are almost interchangeable. I want > some sort of separate machine to get the "file server" role off the DCs. > Maybe that means a NAS, maybe it means a SAN, maybe it means a server with > DAS running Windows Storage Server. At this point, I'm not really sure what > the best money would be. Whatever we get, I want it to be expandable so > that > as we (hopefully) grow, we can add more storage as needed. > > I do like the idea of having tape to back up whatever we have. If we're > going to have email in-house, we're likely to end up with at least a couple > terabytes of data in the long run, so whatever archival backup we end up > with is likely to need to be a library, instead of just an on-board tape > drive. > > > > From: Kevin Lundy [mailto:klu...@gmail.com] > Sent: Friday, September 24, 2010 9:12 AM > > To: NT System Admin Issues > > Subject: Re: SAN question > > > And absolutely none of that requires a SAN. Especially for your data set > size. > > Why do you think you need a SAN? versus NAS? versus well architechted DAS > with decent tape? > > On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 8:37 AM, John Aldrich < > jaldr...@blueridgecarpet.com> > > wrote: > I want to ensure that the data integrity remains intact, even if it takes a > couple days to recover. This is business-critical data, although we could > live without it for a couple or three days, it would be very difficult and > time consuming to recreate much of the data on the servers. For this > reason, > I want redundant disks, network, controllers, etc. > I believe I previously mentioned that my CEO told me we could live with > taking up to 3 or 4 days to recover the data, but after that, it would be > problematic. Personally, I'd like to get it down to under 48 hours to > recover (not 4 business days, 48 actual hours.) That's why I want redundant > controllers or if I can't get redundant controllers on the storage > appliance > itself, I want redundant storage appliances, such that the data itself is > redundant. > I would not like to have to go to the CEO and tell him "sorry, we lost the > data because the system crashed and we had no backups." Theoretically, I > could have one "appliance" and a tape library and be good, but I'd prefer > to > have it a *little* more robust than that. > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Steven M. Caesare [mailto:scaes...@caesare.com] > Sent: Friday, September 24, 2010 12:12 AM > To: NT System Admin Issues > Subject: RE: SAN question > > > set up in some way that there's lots of redundancy > > Data redundancy? Disk redundancy? Controller redundancy? Site redundancy? > Link redundancy?... > > If the answers to any of the above are "yes", to what degree? > > You can go nuts with this stuff... as has been mentioned before, what are > your business requirements driving this architecture? > > -sc > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: John Aldrich [mailto:jaldr...@blueridgecarpet.com] > > Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 3:28 PM > > To: NT System Admin Issues > > Subject: RE: SAN question > > > > Well, I *would* like to get the storage off the domain controllers and > have it > > set up in some way that there's lots of redundancy. I suppose I could buy > a > > Microsoft Storage Server with a couple terabytes of disk space and use > that. > > > > > > > > From: Bill Humphries [mailto:nt...@hedgedigger.com] > > Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 3:14 PM > > To: NT System Admin Issues > > Subject: Re: SAN question > > > > Yeah, my vote is for DAS. You have a simple network that doesn't have to > be > > complex. A carpet company isn't some startup or tech company that will > > change radically in a short period of time. The only way things > radically > > change there is if Shaw or Mohawk come knocking at the door...then you > > have different problems. > > > > Bill > > > > > > Jeff Steward wrote: > > I'm bored, I'll bite. > > > > Like others here, I'm not convinced you even need a SAN or even NAS. You > > can probably make use of DAS. > > > > To even begin to make an attempt to give you more guidance we need: > > > > How many users will be hitting the file server. > > What type of file i/o are we talking about? Have you benchmarked your > > current performance? How much storage do you currently have and how > > much do you think you will need to meet anticipated growth over the next > 24 > > to 36 months. > > > > If you move to providing in-house Exchange, how many users will you be > > hosting? How many are heavy duty users versus light duty? > > > > That's a start, answers to those questions will help us help you further. > > > > -Jeff Steward > > On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 10:16 AM, John Aldrich > > <jaldr...@blueridgecarpet.com> wrote: > > Ok, guys. I'm trying to narrow down my many choices with regards to our > on- > > going search for a SAN manufacturer. I'd like your thoughts on the whole > > question of adding more intelligence vs just adding more disks. i.e. the > EQ vs > > LeftHand models. > > > > I can see arguments to be made for both models. I'll tell you that, > initially, the > > SAN is going to be a glorified file server, however, we plan on hosting > our > > email data store on the SAN when we bring email in-house later on. I've > > already verified with the email vendor that I hope to use that this is > not > a > > problem, so that's a non-issue. Other than that, the only database we > would > > store on the SAN would possibly be the database from our Vipre install, > > although initially that would stay on the local storage. > > > > So, I'd like to see some discussions of the benefits of just adding a > tray > of > > "dumb drives" or adding a complete controller along with the drives (a la > > LeftHand.) > > > > I just don't know enough about the benefits of each model to know what > > would work best for us. I'm hoping that you guys who are more experienced > > would give me the benefit of your knowledge. > > > > > > > > Thanks, > > John Aldrich > > IT Manager, > > Blueridge Carpet > > 706-276-2001, Ext. 2233 > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin