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#1
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Backup and Sharing
Hello,
I have a challenge in my hands and would like your input to make a decision. We have a mobile workforce, started as 2 individuals a year ago but it is now 32 individuals. We have a central office where everybody checks in once or twice a week, but they normally work on the road, so internet is our backbone to be connected. A Single P4 Windows XP desktop computer with an ftp server (U-Serv) holds accounts for each of the users ir order to have incremental backups just in case of laptops getting damaged, lost, etc. The backup processed was handled by SyncBack SE. As the users grew the backup requirement grew and now that computer houses four 500GB hard drives totalling 2TB of available space for backups. We are currently using 1.4TB of the space. At some point we needed to share information so we started using Groove to share folders, but Groove limits folders shared to 2 GB, which is not enough for some projects and data needs to be spread through several folders which is a mess. The challenge: 1. We need a central place to store information as we are doing now, but it must allow us to have an easier way to increment space when required. Reading posts and publications I read about LUN and LUN masking, from what I understand I can use several hard drives and map them as a sinlgle unit and if I need more space I can add another drive and that would fix the problem, is that so? What we have is becoming a problem to manage. 2. We need to share files in directories larger than 2GB, each shared directory is owned by a single user and vieable by several others so even if the owner does not connect to sync his data in a while, there would not be a problem for overwriting or multiple versions of the file. 3. For now we only do business in Florida but in the next months we are going to start conducting business abroad in Peru and I am concerned that the personnel in Peru will not be able to sync all their information to us or from us due to the slow connection speed in Peru. I was thinking that having a parallel Desktop computer in Peru with another ftp server would to the trick and I would need to have the data in sync between the servers, but that would mean that each laptop would have to be a child of one of the servers, either the peru or usa server. This would be a simple solution, but I would still be adding to my current problem. I know its a lot to take on, and I have written a lot so far but I don't know which way to go. From all that I've read I think I should go this path (please correct me), 1. SERVER I need a server of some sort to handle my data, I am a Windows person so I would prefer a windows server. The option so far apparently is a Windows Server or Windows Storage Server which can handle mapping several drives as a single logical unit. Now, i just need to handle files, a LOT of them, but only files, is there any other server that would do the trick? 2. DATA replication? sharing? Here I am totally lost, I don't really know how I can handle this. Right now I am just using ftp for incremental backups and Groove to share data, but there must be a better solution in order to have files shared and backed up. Any suggestions? THANK YOU ALL!! Iff anybody can help me I know it's going to be you guys, please tell me what you think, opinions, point me in the right direction. Regards, Diego Arbe |
#2
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Backup and Sharing
Ok Ok... I know nobody has replied yet...I wrote this only a couple of
hours ago, but let me tell you where I am with my research... Microsoft Server 2003 or 2008 apparently solves most or all of my problems: 1---Using multiple hard disks as need grows: LUN? VDS? apparently these only works for clusters or SAN and NAS. If they dont work with internal and external hard drives I can just use DFS Namespaces and map them in a single namespace as different folders, they wouldn't 'really' be a single pool of data, It wouldn't be the optimal solution, but it would be half way. I am sure LUN or VDS actually do what I need, but I won't know until I try it. What do you think? 2---Replication for 2 servers Having a server in Peru and another in USA I can use DFS Replication to have all the data in both locations so that the computers can access the information always, being either in Peru or Usa. Now... how can I TELL a laptop which server to connect to? do I need to tell them anything? will they look for the optimal connection? the one that is faster for their current location? I have been reading that some Active Directory Service did this for Windows Server 2003, but I dont know how this works in Windows Server 2008. 3---Working Offline and in low bandwith places As i said before, ALL if not most of my users will normally work offline, away from the office and if they connect they will be in low bandwith places unless when they check in to the main office once or twice a week. So I need a solution where they can work offline primarily and when they are actually online, that their performance doesnt get diminished because of their slow connection speed. Initially I thought that 'offline files' would do the trick, and maybe it will, but if it doesnt I will have to find another solution... question here... if the connection if SUPER slow and you have offline files ONLINE because you are connected to the internet through VPN, will the laptop access the files on the server and take an eternity? or can I set up offline files to ALWAYS work primarily on the laptop and sync whenever the files are not in use? 4--- VPN I've only had experiance with some software VPN solutions, never hardware. I know that in order to get all this working I will need a software VPN working. Is there a 'typical' software VPN solution for the setup I am proposing? I've used OpenSSH in Suse; and Tinc and Hamachi for Windows in the past. If i recall correctly, OpenSSH does not work with Windows, Tinc does but I've used it so long ago i dont know if it would be great for a large deployment. Any suggestions here? Well... I will leave you with my thoughts, let me know what you think. Regards, Diego Arbe |
#3
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Backup and Sharing
4--- VPN
I've only had experiance with some software VPN solutions, never hardware. I know that in order to get all this working I will need a software VPN working. Is there a 'typical' software VPN solution for the setup I am proposing? I've used OpenSSH in Suse; and Tinc and Hamachi for Windows in the past. If i recall correctly, OpenSSH does Windows has embedded PPTP and L2TP VPN support. Unfortunately, L2TP is based on IPSec, and IPSec does not work across NATs - NAT translator updates the packet header and does not know the crypto keys, thus turning the digital signature and ciphertext to junk. So, L2TP does not work across NATs (unless the NAT is aware of it), which limits is value a lot - you cannot work with L2TP VPN from many public ISPs. -- Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP StorageCraft Corporation http://www.storagecraft.com |
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