Re: Backup of Remote Sites
David Nash wrote: >There are several people doing backups of remote sites >across a WAN. Most have commented that they have been >successful. The consensus seems to be that success depends >on the exact situation. Everyone reccomends using client >compression. "It doen't hurt to try it." > >We will be trying our first site this weekend. If anyone >whats to know how it went, email me OTL next week. One more bit to toss out: If your data delta on WAN-attached TSM clients is rather high for the bandwidth and time restrictions you face, I had one customer who found a clever way around it. T1s connected the TSM server from many of the WAN clients. The customer had the WAN vendor take a portion of the T1 pipe (32K, I think) and reroute it through a smaller number of routers than the balance of the pipe. Thus, OSPF allowed my customer to reserve that bit of bandwidth for a 7x24 backup scheme. The TSM backup could use a larger share of the bandwidth if it was available, but it always had at least 32K to use. I'm not a network engineer, but it looked pretty clever, and it worked. -- Mark Stapleton ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Backup of Remote Sites
All, Thanks for all of the input. Here is a summary of what was said: There are several people doing backups of remote sites across a WAN. Most have commented that they have been successful. The consensus seems to be that success depends on the exact situation. Everyone reccomends using client compression. "It doen't hurt to try it." We will be trying our first site this weekend. If anyone whats to know how it went, email me OTL next week. Thanks Again, --David Nash Systems Administrator The GSI Group - Original Message - From: "Palmadesso Jack" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 1:35 PM Subject: Re: Backup of Remote Sites > We do this also with over 150 sites. Normal file restores are not a problem > but if the box fails or corrupts itself then we rebuild a box here and let > them run over the WAN until we can ship it out over the weekend. For boxes > coming in over the wan I have a client option set that makes sure they use > compression since some of our links are very slow (56K) Its all been working > well here for years. > > The only warning I would give is if you are using any type of connect agent > you may want to make sure you are using a fast enough link. The exchange > agent especially is not very forgiving of "bumps" in the network. I believe > this is a safety mechanism built into the agent that protects the integrity > of the stores. When we first started using Exchange some backups would take > over 36 hours. Any "bump" in the network would cause the whole thing to > fail and we would have to start all over again. Now all sites that warrant > their own Exchange Server automatically get their own TSM server. > > Jack > > -Original Message- > From: David Nash [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 1:07 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Backup of Remote Sites > > > The boxes range in size for 1G to 45G. But, the > amount of daily change is small. I really like the > idea of having the data here. That way, if we need to > we can rebuild the box here and take it to the remote site. > > --David Nash > Systems Administrator > The GSI Group > > ----- Original Message - > From: "Cook, Dwight E" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 11:37 AM > Subject: Re: Backup of Remote Sites > > > > Client compression would be very helpful... > > How big are the boxes ? ? ? > > and a full restore would take time but the data would be there. > > I've backed up NT boxes from Atlanta GA into Tulsa OK (I'm pretty sure > the > > nodes are still registered...) > > they run fine but my network speeds are a little better than what you've > > mentioned. > > Ya know... it wouldn't hurt to toss on the client and do an initial test > and > > see. > > Worst case, you delete its data from the server and delete the client. > > Always a bottle neck somewhere :-( > > > > Dwight > > > > -Original Message- > > From: David Nash [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > > Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 10:50 AM > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: Backup of Remote Sites > > > > > > I have a question for all of the *SM/Network experts > > out there. We have a central office that we just > > started using TSM at. We also have several remote > > offices that are connected to central office via > > dedicated lines. Theses sites currently are running > > their own backups via NTBackup. We are concerned that > > these backups are unreliable/not offsite/not being done. > > The dedicated lines are mostly 256Kbs lines but a few > > are smaller. Is it a good idea to try to back up these > > sites across the WAN using *SM? We realize that the first > > backup would take a while, but after we suffer through that, > > the amount of changed data would be small. Is it a good > > idea in this case to turn on client compression? Any > > suggestions would be appreciated. > > > > Thanks, > > > > --David Nash > > Systems Administrator > > The GSI Group > > > > >
AW: Backup of Remote Sites
Hi, just 2 pennies: - yes, compression on should be used in such configuration, and *sm client is better suited for that than NTBackup. - do think in terms of restore, not in terms of backup backup: while you probbaly will succeed in backuops, will you still be able to perfom good enough at restores, which are non-incremental by their very nature? regards Juraj Salak [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: David Nash [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Gesendet am: Mittwoch, 4. April 2001 17:50 An: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Betreff: Backup of Remote Sites I have a question for all of the *SM/Network experts out there. We have a central office that we just started using TSM at. We also have several remote offices that are connected to central office via dedicated lines. Theses sites currently are running their own backups via NTBackup. We are concerned that these backups are unreliable/not offsite/not being done. The dedicated lines are mostly 256Kbs lines but a few are smaller. Is it a good idea to try to back up these sites across the WAN using *SM? We realize that the first backup would take a while, but after we suffer through that, the amount of changed data would be small. Is it a good idea in this case to turn on client compression? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks, --David Nash Systems Administrator The GSI Group
Re: Backup of Remote Sites
We do this also with over 150 sites. Normal file restores are not a problem but if the box fails or corrupts itself then we rebuild a box here and let them run over the WAN until we can ship it out over the weekend. For boxes coming in over the wan I have a client option set that makes sure they use compression since some of our links are very slow (56K) Its all been working well here for years. The only warning I would give is if you are using any type of connect agent you may want to make sure you are using a fast enough link. The exchange agent especially is not very forgiving of "bumps" in the network. I believe this is a safety mechanism built into the agent that protects the integrity of the stores. When we first started using Exchange some backups would take over 36 hours. Any "bump" in the network would cause the whole thing to fail and we would have to start all over again. Now all sites that warrant their own Exchange Server automatically get their own TSM server. Jack -Original Message- From: David Nash [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 1:07 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Backup of Remote Sites The boxes range in size for 1G to 45G. But, the amount of daily change is small. I really like the idea of having the data here. That way, if we need to we can rebuild the box here and take it to the remote site. --David Nash Systems Administrator The GSI Group - Original Message - From: "Cook, Dwight E" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 11:37 AM Subject: Re: Backup of Remote Sites > Client compression would be very helpful... > How big are the boxes ? ? ? > and a full restore would take time but the data would be there. > I've backed up NT boxes from Atlanta GA into Tulsa OK (I'm pretty sure the > nodes are still registered...) > they run fine but my network speeds are a little better than what you've > mentioned. > Ya know... it wouldn't hurt to toss on the client and do an initial test and > see. > Worst case, you delete its data from the server and delete the client. > Always a bottle neck somewhere :-( > > Dwight > > -Original Message- > From: David Nash [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 10:50 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Backup of Remote Sites > > > I have a question for all of the *SM/Network experts > out there. We have a central office that we just > started using TSM at. We also have several remote > offices that are connected to central office via > dedicated lines. Theses sites currently are running > their own backups via NTBackup. We are concerned that > these backups are unreliable/not offsite/not being done. > The dedicated lines are mostly 256Kbs lines but a few > are smaller. Is it a good idea to try to back up these > sites across the WAN using *SM? We realize that the first > backup would take a while, but after we suffer through that, > the amount of changed data would be small. Is it a good > idea in this case to turn on client compression? Any > suggestions would be appreciated. > > Thanks, > > --David Nash > Systems Administrator > The GSI Group > >
Re: Backup of Remote Sites
We do it for some small machines. It works. The answer is, of course "it depends on your situation." These are small machines that aren't terribly critical - if we lost one, we could take 24 hours to rebuild it and the users would still be happy (give that their other choice is to have to recustomize). If your clients are very large, or very time critical, it is less likely to work for you. Maybe this is a case where you want to back up just a few directories, not the whole C: drive. I would definitely turn on client compression. This is also a good case for trying to use backupsets. If they need a massive restore, you create a backupset on your end, cut a CD, then fed-ex it overnight, and restore it there from the CD. Just depends on what your requirements are for that system. And giving it a try is harmless, the TSM backups won't interfere with their current NT backups. So you could also do both - use the ntbackup for local stuff, then use the TSM backup as a failsafe/offsite backup in case the local is indeed unreliable/not done. Try one and see how it works out! -Original Message- From: David Nash [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 11:50 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Backup of Remote Sites I have a question for all of the *SM/Network experts out there. We have a central office that we just started using TSM at. We also have several remote offices that are connected to central office via dedicated lines. Theses sites currently are running their own backups via NTBackup. We are concerned that these backups are unreliable/not offsite/not being done. The dedicated lines are mostly 256Kbs lines but a few are smaller. Is it a good idea to try to back up these sites across the WAN using *SM? We realize that the first backup would take a while, but after we suffer through that, the amount of changed data would be small. Is it a good idea in this case to turn on client compression? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks, --David Nash Systems Administrator The GSI Group
Re: Backup of Remote Sites
As Dwight mentioned, the problem isn't backup it's restore. As long as you have some plan in place for the big restore you should be OK. Onesy twosy file restores will be fine, but what happens if you lose the entire disk? The best plan for that is to rebuild the disk at the central site and overnight it to the remote site. Downtime is at worst case 36 hours or so. Can you live with that? Remember, this is worst case: drive failure or massive corruption. Minimize the chances by using RAID at the remote site and have a plan for when it does happen. Kelly J. Lipp Storage Solutions Specialists, Inc. PO Box 51313 Colorado Springs CO 80949-1313 (719) 531-5926 Fax: (240) 539-7175 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.storsol.com www.storserver.com -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Cook, Dwight E Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 10:38 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Backup of Remote Sites Client compression would be very helpful... How big are the boxes ? ? ? and a full restore would take time but the data would be there. I've backed up NT boxes from Atlanta GA into Tulsa OK (I'm pretty sure the nodes are still registered...) they run fine but my network speeds are a little better than what you've mentioned. Ya know... it wouldn't hurt to toss on the client and do an initial test and see. Worst case, you delete its data from the server and delete the client. Always a bottle neck somewhere :-( Dwight -Original Message- From: David Nash [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 10:50 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Backup of Remote Sites I have a question for all of the *SM/Network experts out there. We have a central office that we just started using TSM at. We also have several remote offices that are connected to central office via dedicated lines. Theses sites currently are running their own backups via NTBackup. We are concerned that these backups are unreliable/not offsite/not being done. The dedicated lines are mostly 256Kbs lines but a few are smaller. Is it a good idea to try to back up these sites across the WAN using *SM? We realize that the first backup would take a while, but after we suffer through that, the amount of changed data would be small. Is it a good idea in this case to turn on client compression? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks, --David Nash Systems Administrator The GSI Group
Re: Backup of Remote Sites
Most of my remote sites are T1, but I do have 3 that are 256K lines. I do
use client compression, but my remote clients are fairly newer hardware so
they can handle the extra load. You will have to run some tests to see
what is faster, dependent on your particular hardware. One thing to note
is that the remote site is pretty much unusable during the backup period
because of the combined network/client load. If you're a 24x7 shop,
you'll probably have some unhappy users.
I did the initial backups during the weekend and things have been fine
except for a few glitches. I have scheduled the cancel sessions command
to run in the morning just to ensure the lines are free for business
users. I got bit by the daylight savings issue which caused basically a
full backup to run (last fall or spring?), so this is a safeguard for
issues like that. Large changes, like ACL changes on NTFS volumes will
take a couple nights worth of backups to catch up again, but that is an
acceptable risk for the rare instances it does happen.
I used to run ADSM locally at these sites, but since I have upgraded to
TSM and centrally consolidated on one server. Life is much easier now
with everything centralized. As with most people, 99% of my restores are
small so they can be done over the 256K lines with no problems. For the
larger and/or disaster restores, I have tested two options, but have yet
to actually use one of them in a live situation:
1. Use backupsets. The remote sites have local tape drives from the days
when they backed themselves up, so I have the same tape drive type at the
central site that I use to write backupsets for these clients. The tape
can be shipped out and the restored locally using the client tape drive.
If you're using NTbackup now, they must have tape drives, hopefully they
are all the same type and you can get one at your main site to use for
backupsets.
2. Restore to spare hardware locally and ship it as a replacement. This
would probably be the option in a total disaster situation.
Just as a reference point, these are the average backup stats from my 256K
remote clients over the last 14 days (the second one is a little slower
hardware, the others are identical):
145MB backed up, 52 minutes elapsed time
45 MB backed up, 22 minutes elapsed time
71 MB backed up, 24 minutes elapsed time
===
John Monahan
Network Team Coordinator
Liberty Diversified Industries
(763) 536-6677
===
David Nash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent by: "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
04/04/01 10:50 AM
Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager"
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
cc:
Subject:Backup of Remote Sites
I have a question for all of the *SM/Network experts
out there. We have a central office that we just
started using TSM at. We also have several remote
offices that are connected to central office via
dedicated lines. Theses sites currently are running
their own backups via NTBackup. We are concerned that
these backups are unreliable/not offsite/not being done.
The dedicated lines are mostly 256Kbs lines but a few
are smaller. Is it a good idea to try to back up these
sites across the WAN using *SM? We realize that the first
backup would take a while, but after we suffer through that,
the amount of changed data would be small. Is it a good
idea in this case to turn on client compression? Any
suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks,
--David Nash
Systems Administrator
The GSI Group
Re: Backup of Remote Sites
The boxes range in size for 1G to 45G. But, the amount of daily change is small. I really like the idea of having the data here. That way, if we need to we can rebuild the box here and take it to the remote site. --David Nash Systems Administrator The GSI Group - Original Message - From: "Cook, Dwight E" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 11:37 AM Subject: Re: Backup of Remote Sites > Client compression would be very helpful... > How big are the boxes ? ? ? > and a full restore would take time but the data would be there. > I've backed up NT boxes from Atlanta GA into Tulsa OK (I'm pretty sure the > nodes are still registered...) > they run fine but my network speeds are a little better than what you've > mentioned. > Ya know... it wouldn't hurt to toss on the client and do an initial test and > see. > Worst case, you delete its data from the server and delete the client. > Always a bottle neck somewhere :-( > > Dwight > > -Original Message- > From: David Nash [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 10:50 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Backup of Remote Sites > > > I have a question for all of the *SM/Network experts > out there. We have a central office that we just > started using TSM at. We also have several remote > offices that are connected to central office via > dedicated lines. Theses sites currently are running > their own backups via NTBackup. We are concerned that > these backups are unreliable/not offsite/not being done. > The dedicated lines are mostly 256Kbs lines but a few > are smaller. Is it a good idea to try to back up these > sites across the WAN using *SM? We realize that the first > backup would take a while, but after we suffer through that, > the amount of changed data would be small. Is it a good > idea in this case to turn on client compression? Any > suggestions would be appreciated. > > Thanks, > > --David Nash > Systems Administrator > The GSI Group > >
Re: Backup of Remote Sites
Works for us We back up 20-25 small NT based nodes scattered around the Washington D.C. area to a larger site in Gaithersburg Md. They are all T1 connections. We run with client compression on and overall average about 1 GB per hour on a single T1. Again not something you would want to do for a larger node but for a small office with one or two servers it beats dealing with a local backups and ensuring that someone is doing the tape mount/unmount work reliably. Curt Magura Lockheed Martin EIS Gaithersburg, Md. 301-240-6305 -Original Message- From: David Nash [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 11:50 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Backup of Remote Sites I have a question for all of the *SM/Network experts out there. We have a central office that we just started using TSM at. We also have several remote offices that are connected to central office via dedicated lines. Theses sites currently are running their own backups via NTBackup. We are concerned that these backups are unreliable/not offsite/not being done. The dedicated lines are mostly 256Kbs lines but a few are smaller. Is it a good idea to try to back up these sites across the WAN using *SM? We realize that the first backup would take a while, but after we suffer through that, the amount of changed data would be small. Is it a good idea in this case to turn on client compression? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks, --David Nash Systems Administrator The GSI Group
Re: Backup of Remote Sites
Client compression would be very helpful... How big are the boxes ? ? ? and a full restore would take time but the data would be there. I've backed up NT boxes from Atlanta GA into Tulsa OK (I'm pretty sure the nodes are still registered...) they run fine but my network speeds are a little better than what you've mentioned. Ya know... it wouldn't hurt to toss on the client and do an initial test and see. Worst case, you delete its data from the server and delete the client. Always a bottle neck somewhere :-( Dwight -Original Message- From: David Nash [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 10:50 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Backup of Remote Sites I have a question for all of the *SM/Network experts out there. We have a central office that we just started using TSM at. We also have several remote offices that are connected to central office via dedicated lines. Theses sites currently are running their own backups via NTBackup. We are concerned that these backups are unreliable/not offsite/not being done. The dedicated lines are mostly 256Kbs lines but a few are smaller. Is it a good idea to try to back up these sites across the WAN using *SM? We realize that the first backup would take a while, but after we suffer through that, the amount of changed data would be small. Is it a good idea in this case to turn on client compression? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks, --David Nash Systems Administrator The GSI Group
Backup of Remote Sites
I have a question for all of the *SM/Network experts out there. We have a central office that we just started using TSM at. We also have several remote offices that are connected to central office via dedicated lines. Theses sites currently are running their own backups via NTBackup. We are concerned that these backups are unreliable/not offsite/not being done. The dedicated lines are mostly 256Kbs lines but a few are smaller. Is it a good idea to try to back up these sites across the WAN using *SM? We realize that the first backup would take a while, but after we suffer through that, the amount of changed data would be small. Is it a good idea in this case to turn on client compression? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks, --David Nash Systems Administrator The GSI Group
