network backup solutions for business

Hey.
I had a few questions, about backup at companies.

I'm just guessing on this, because I've never worked at a big corporation,
but for backups, do the employees of the company usually save all critical
data on the network server under the folder name that they have access to ?
Then whenever a new employee comes in the system adminstor makes them a new
folder to store there critical data ?

Then nightly or how ever often the system adminstraotors desire, you back up
the server to tape ? Incremental or full backups ?

And another question, I think i have the answer but not sure.
I heard of companies buying a bunch of a Windows 2003 servers, I think they
do this because maybe the server only handles say 1000 employees ? So if you
have a bunch of servers you can handle more employees to run and save data
of the server ?

Then I was reading on Veritas website that 99 % of all the fortune 500
companies run Backup Exec for there backup storage resources.. Why does
Veritas have such a monopoly on the industry ? Is it really that good of a
product ?

And finally about licenecing, this whole part i'm confused on about as well,
do the backup software work similiar to how windows licensees there
products. You buy a licensee to back up 25 users critical data, you get more
employees you by a licensee that supports backup for 50 users, etc.. ?

Thanks.

Happy Holidays

And another question,
If ntbackup.exe comes with Windows, why do people bother to purchase a
backup solution software if one comes with the os. NTbackup seems quite
similiar except i don't thinkit supports the ms exchange server or sql
server backups.
?

Thanks.

"Alley Alian" wrote in message
...
Hey.
I had a few questions, about backup at companies.

I'm just guessing on this, because I've never worked at a big corporation,
but for backups, do the employees of the company usually save all critical
data on the network server under the folder name that they have access to
?
Then whenever a new employee comes in the system adminstor makes them a
new
folder to store there critical data ?

Then nightly or how ever often the system adminstraotors desire, you back
up
the server to tape ? Incremental or full backups ?

And another question, I think i have the answer but not sure.
I heard of companies buying a bunch of a Windows 2003 servers, I think
they
do this because maybe the server only handles say 1000 employees ? So if
you
have a bunch of servers you can handle more employees to run and save data
of the server ?

Then I was reading on Veritas website that 99 % of all the fortune 500
companies run Backup Exec for there backup storage resources.. Why does
Veritas have such a monopoly on the industry ? Is it really that good of a
product ?

And finally about licenecing, this whole part i'm confused on about as
well,
do the backup software work similiar to how windows licensees there
products. You buy a licensee to back up 25 users critical data, you get
more
employees you by a licensee that supports backup for 50 users, etc.. ?

Thanks.

Happy Holidays

"Alley Alian" wrote in message
...
And another question,
If ntbackup.exe comes with Windows, why do people bother to purchase a
backup solution software if one comes with the os. NTbackup seems quite
similiar except i don't thinkit supports the ms exchange server or sql
server backups.
?

Because ntbackup is not robust. It does include such features such as the
ability to back up open files, the centralized management of backup hardware
and policies. If you have more than about 20 machines using ntbackup, it
becomes unmanageable. Plus, there is no facility for special application
backups (Oracle, Exchange, etc.) Commercial backup products also offer
features such as backup consolidation, multi-streaming, etc.

"Alley Alian" wrote in message
...
Hey.
I had a few questions, about backup at companies.

I'm just guessing on this, because I've never worked at a big
corporation,
but for backups, do the employees of the company usually save all
critical
data on the network server under the folder name that they have access
to
?
Then whenever a new employee comes in the system adminstor makes them a
new
folder to store there critical data ?

Then nightly or how ever often the system adminstraotors desire, you
back
up
the server to tape ? Incremental or full backups ?

Depends on the environment, but I've never worked anywhere where a company
backs up workstations. Space is allocated on a centralized server or NAS
device for each user and application, and that where they keep all the stuff
they want backed up. The only exception to this is laptops, where the users
have only intermittent access to the network. Even then, most places I know
of put it on the user to back up their stuff (not necessarily a good
policy).

The "default" backup schedule at most sites I've worked is weekly full
backups, with daily incrementals, which is really overkill for most sites.
What really should be done depends on the volatility of the data (how much
changes in a given day). Most user data is about 1% volatile on a daily
basis, in my experience. That is, for every 100 MB on a server, only about
1 MB changes every day. Of course, that really depends on the environment.
Sites with strict quotas or special applications have much higher
volatility.

The reason for doing weekly fulls, daily incrementals is to minimize the
number of media required for a restore. If you do fulls on Sunday, and
incrementals after that, and you want to do a complete restore of a
filesystem on the next Saturday, you need Sunday through Friday's backups.
If you use the same scheme only with monthly fulls, you could need 30 pieces
of media.

If a site has a problem doing full backups on a weekly basis, they can
usually get away with monthly fulls/weekly differentials/daily incrementals.

You touched on an important point. The backup schedules should never be
decided by the system administrator. Backup schedules are determined by the
criticality of the data and the amount of resources (money) you can throw at
protecting those data. As such, that is solely as business decision. The
system administrator should be involved (and even decide) on the technical
aspects of the implementation, but it should never be left to technical
personnel to try to decide which data is how important.

And another question, I think i have the answer but not sure.
I heard of companies buying a bunch of a Windows 2003 servers, I think
they
do this because maybe the server only handles say 1000 employees ? So if
you
have a bunch of servers you can handle more employees to run and save
data
of the server ?

Again, it depends on the environment and application. It's pretty rare to
see more than 1000 users with their home directories on a single Windoze
box. CIFS and NFS are applications that a lot of companies have pretty well
tuned. I only see Windows file servers at small sites where they do it out
of convenience. But applications like Exchange have definite performance
limitations, and one box can only effectively serve a finite number of
users.

Then I was reading on Veritas website that 99 % of all the fortune 500
companies run Backup Exec for there backup storage resources.. Why does
Veritas have such a monopoly on the industry ? Is it really that good of
a
product ?

Marketing fluff. Backup Exec is low-end product that a lot of end users and
small shops like to use. And fortune 500 companies have lots of small
divisions. So if you have 100 data centers in your company, and 1 of them
is using Backup Exec to manage Exchange backups, you get put on that list,
even if the majority of the data centers in your company use another
product.

And finally about licenecing, this whole part i'm confused on about as
well,
do the backup software work similiar to how windows licensees there
products. You buy a licensee to back up 25 users critical data, you get
more
employees you by a licensee that supports backup for 50 users, etc.. ?

Depends on the application. Most companies license by server. So if you
have 500 users that are on one server all you need is one client license
(plus the backup server license, and whatever else hardware specific type
stuff you need). The sales rep would be able to explain that to you.

--paul

Awesome info

In the business world, do the restores only take place when there's a disk
failure, or do they do restores
when maybe the user accidently shift-deletes the file ? And are the
restores usually image based restores, or do the system adminstrators
reinstall the operating system from scratch, and use the backup software to
restore the settings on the system and to rebuild the folder directory
structure and network permissions for the data which was backed up ?

And how often do people usually run into having to do restores on there file
servers ?
My harddrive died after about 3 years, but it was one of those lower quality
models.

peace.



"Paul" wrote in message
news:NVrGb.13561$Fg.6375@lakeread01...

"Alley Alian" wrote in message
...
And another question,
If ntbackup.exe comes with Windows, why do people bother to purchase a
backup solution software if one comes with the os. NTbackup seems quite
similiar except i don't thinkit supports the ms exchange server or sql
server backups.
?

Because ntbackup is not robust. It does include such features such as the
ability to back up open files, the centralized management of backup
hardware
and policies. If you have more than about 20 machines using ntbackup, it
becomes unmanageable. Plus, there is no facility for special application
backups (Oracle, Exchange, etc.) Commercial backup products also offer
features such as backup consolidation, multi-streaming, etc.

"Alley Alian" wrote in message
...
Hey.
I had a few questions, about backup at companies.

I'm just guessing on this, because I've never worked at a big
corporation,
but for backups, do the employees of the company usually save all
critical
data on the network server under the folder name that they have access
to
?
Then whenever a new employee comes in the system adminstor makes them
a
new
folder to store there critical data ?

Then nightly or how ever often the system adminstraotors desire, you
back
up
the server to tape ? Incremental or full backups ?

Depends on the environment, but I've never worked anywhere where a company
backs up workstations. Space is allocated on a centralized server or NAS
device for each user and application, and that where they keep all the
stuff
they want backed up. The only exception to this is laptops, where the
users
have only intermittent access to the network. Even then, most places I
know
of put it on the user to back up their stuff (not necessarily a good
policy).

The "default" backup schedule at most sites I've worked is weekly full
backups, with daily incrementals, which is really overkill for most sites.
What really should be done depends on the volatility of the data (how much
changes in a given day). Most user data is about 1% volatile on a daily
basis, in my experience. That is, for every 100 MB on a server, only
about
1 MB changes every day. Of course, that really depends on the
environment.
Sites with strict quotas or special applications have much higher
volatility.

The reason for doing weekly fulls, daily incrementals is to minimize the
number of media required for a restore. If you do fulls on Sunday, and
incrementals after that, and you want to do a complete restore of a
filesystem on the next Saturday, you need Sunday through Friday's backups.
If you use the same scheme only with monthly fulls, you could need 30
pieces
of media.

If a site has a problem doing full backups on a weekly basis, they can
usually get away with monthly fulls/weekly differentials/daily
incrementals.

You touched on an important point. The backup schedules should never be
decided by the system administrator. Backup schedules are determined by
the
criticality of the data and the amount of resources (money) you can throw
at
protecting those data. As such, that is solely as business decision. The
system administrator should be involved (and even decide) on the technical
aspects of the implementation, but it should never be left to technical
personnel to try to decide which data is how important.

And another question, I think i have the answer but not sure.
I heard of companies buying a bunch of a Windows 2003 servers, I think
they
do this because maybe the server only handles say 1000 employees ? So
if
you
have a bunch of servers you can handle more employees to run and save
data
of the server ?

Again, it depends on the environment and application. It's pretty rare to
see more than 1000 users with their home directories on a single Windoze
box. CIFS and NFS are applications that a lot of companies have pretty
well
tuned. I only see Windows file servers at small sites where they do it
out
of convenience. But applications like Exchange have definite performance
limitations, and one box can only effectively serve a finite number of
users.

Then I was reading on Veritas website that 99 % of all the fortune 500
companies run Backup Exec for there backup storage resources.. Why
does
Veritas have such a monopoly on the industry ? Is it really that good
of
a
product ?

Marketing fluff. Backup Exec is low-end product that a lot of end users
and
small shops like to use. And fortune 500 companies have lots of small
divisions. So if you have 100 data centers in your company, and 1 of them
is using Backup Exec to manage Exchange backups, you get put on that list,
even if the majority of the data centers in your company use another
product.

And finally about licenecing, this whole part i'm confused on about as
well,
do the backup software work similiar to how windows licensees there
products. You buy a licensee to back up 25 users critical data, you
get
more
employees you by a licensee that supports backup for 50 users, etc.. ?

Depends on the application. Most companies license by server. So if you
have 500 users that are on one server all you need is one client license
(plus the backup server license, and whatever else hardware specific type
stuff you need). The sales rep would be able to explain that to you.

--paul

On the business side of things, if you just pay the backup software company
say 750 $ for your 1 server that is a file server for hundreds of employees,
how do the backup companies manage to make money ?

?
Or is Veritas just that common where they sell to 1000's of the small
business around the world ?

Thanks.

"Alley Alian" wrote in message
...
Awesome info

In the business world, do the restores only take place when there's a disk
failure, or do they do restores
when maybe the user accidently shift-deletes the file ? And are the
restores usually image based restores, or do the system adminstrators
reinstall the operating system from scratch, and use the backup software
to
restore the settings on the system and to rebuild the folder directory
structure and network permissions for the data which was backed up ?

And how often do people usually run into having to do restores on there
file
servers ?
My harddrive died after about 3 years, but it was one of those lower
quality
models.

peace.



"Paul" wrote in message
news:NVrGb.13561$Fg.6375@lakeread01...

"Alley Alian" wrote in message
...
And another question,
If ntbackup.exe comes with Windows, why do people bother to purchase a
backup solution software if one comes with the os. NTbackup seems
quite
similiar except i don't thinkit supports the ms exchange server or sql
server backups.
?

Because ntbackup is not robust. It does include such features such as
the
ability to back up open files, the centralized management of backup
hardware
and policies. If you have more than about 20 machines using ntbackup,
it
becomes unmanageable. Plus, there is no facility for special
application
backups (Oracle, Exchange, etc.) Commercial backup products also offer
features such as backup consolidation, multi-streaming, etc.

"Alley Alian" wrote in message
...
Hey.
I had a few questions, about backup at companies.

I'm just guessing on this, because I've never worked at a big
corporation,
but for backups, do the employees of the company usually save all
critical
data on the network server under the folder name that they have
access
to
?
Then whenever a new employee comes in the system adminstor makes
them
a
new
folder to store there critical data ?

Then nightly or how ever often the system adminstraotors desire, you
back
up
the server to tape ? Incremental or full backups ?

Depends on the environment, but I've never worked anywhere where a
company
backs up workstations. Space is allocated on a centralized server or
NAS
device for each user and application, and that where they keep all the
stuff
they want backed up. The only exception to this is laptops, where the
users
have only intermittent access to the network. Even then, most places I
know
of put it on the user to back up their stuff (not necessarily a good
policy).

The "default" backup schedule at most sites I've worked is weekly full
backups, with daily incrementals, which is really overkill for most
sites.
What really should be done depends on the volatility of the data (how
much
changes in a given day). Most user data is about 1% volatile on a daily
basis, in my experience. That is, for every 100 MB on a server, only
about
1 MB changes every day. Of course, that really depends on the
environment.
Sites with strict quotas or special applications have much higher
volatility.

The reason for doing weekly fulls, daily incrementals is to minimize the
number of media required for a restore. If you do fulls on Sunday, and
incrementals after that, and you want to do a complete restore of a
filesystem on the next Saturday, you need Sunday through Friday's
backups.
If you use the same scheme only with monthly fulls, you could need 30
pieces
of media.

If a site has a problem doing full backups on a weekly basis, they can
usually get away with monthly fulls/weekly differentials/daily
incrementals.

You touched on an important point. The backup schedules should never be
decided by the system administrator. Backup schedules are determined by
the
criticality of the data and the amount of resources (money) you can
throw
at
protecting those data. As such, that is solely as business decision.
The
system administrator should be involved (and even decide) on the
technical
aspects of the implementation, but it should never be left to technical
personnel to try to decide which data is how important.

And another question, I think i have the answer but not sure.
I heard of companies buying a bunch of a Windows 2003 servers, I
think
they
do this because maybe the server only handles say 1000 employees ?
So
if
you
have a bunch of servers you can handle more employees to run and
save
data
of the server ?

Again, it depends on the environment and application. It's pretty rare
to
see more than 1000 users with their home directories on a single Windoze
box. CIFS and NFS are applications that a lot of companies have pretty
well
tuned. I only see Windows file servers at small sites where they do it
out
of convenience. But applications like Exchange have definite
performance
limitations, and one box can only effectively serve a finite number of
users.

Then I was reading on Veritas website that 99 % of all the fortune
500
companies run Backup Exec for there backup storage resources.. Why
does
Veritas have such a monopoly on the industry ? Is it really that
good
of
a
product ?

Marketing fluff. Backup Exec is low-end product that a lot of end users
and
small shops like to use. And fortune 500 companies have lots of small
divisions. So if you have 100 data centers in your company, and 1 of
them
is using Backup Exec to manage Exchange backups, you get put on that
list,
even if the majority of the data centers in your company use another
product.

And finally about licenecing, this whole part i'm confused on about
as
well,
do the backup software work similiar to how windows licensees there
products. You buy a licensee to back up 25 users critical data, you
get
more
employees you by a licensee that supports backup for 50 users, etc..
?

Depends on the application. Most companies license by server. So if
you
have 500 users that are on one server all you need is one client license
(plus the backup server license, and whatever else hardware specific
type
stuff you need). The sales rep would be able to explain that to you.

--paul

Restores can be due to disk failure or human error. To be sure, the most
common restore is necessitated by human error rather than disk failure, as
most people protect their data from disk failure with RAID. But that
doesn't mean that whole partitions don't get blown away on a regular basis
by accident.

There are "bare metal" options for a lot of commercial backup products. I
don't see them widely implemented because: (1) most places can have a server
rebuilt with an OS very quickly without a backup product and (2) for windows
servers, the hardware has to be identical in order for a bare metal restore
to work. Bare metal restore usually appeals to manager types who are
attracted to the idea that a whole server can be rebuilt from backups. But
in reality, a well-drilled technician should be able to have a server
rebuilt in less than an hour, and a bare metal restore product won't speed
things up. If they need recovery times of less than that, I tell them they
should look at cold-sparing servers or clustering the application. I see a
fair number of sites where the manager buys the bare metal option, and the
technicians completely ignore the existence of the product, and continue to
use Ghost, jumpstart, kickstart, or whatever they use to build their
servers.

The frequency of restores depends heavily on the environment and the
expectations of the users.

As for the question about money, there's plenty of money in backup software.
While the server software for a typical product may only cost $500-$1500,
it's usually a stripped down app that will only work with at most a small
tape stacker. Options such as support for larger libraries, disk based
virtual tape libraries, open file managers, agents for special applications
such as Oracle, SQL, and Exchange, SAN support, etc quickly drive the price
up. Plus, most businesses purchase maintenance plans where they get support
and upgrades for 18% or 25% of the retail price each year (depending on the
level of support). This creates a very attractive revenue stream for the SW
manufacturer.

For example, I'm deploying an unnamed backup package for a customer that
only has a total of 50 servers, but paid over $500,000 for the software
because of all the options he wanted. The customer I mentioned will pay the
company $1 million over the course of 4 years. More, if they decide to hike
the retail price of the software. And it should be noted that once a backup
product is in place, it usually takes repeated failure of the software for
the organization to be motivated to replace it.

--paul
"Alley Alian" wrote in message
...
Awesome info

In the business world, do the restores only take place when there's a disk
failure, or do they do restores
when maybe the user accidently shift-deletes the file ? And are the
restores usually image based restores, or do the system adminstrators
reinstall the operating system from scratch, and use the backup software
to
restore the settings on the system and to rebuild the folder directory
structure and network permissions for the data which was backed up ?

And how often do people usually run into having to do restores on there
file
servers ?
My harddrive died after about 3 years, but it was one of those lower
quality
models.

peace.



"Paul" wrote in message
news:NVrGb.13561$Fg.6375@lakeread01...

"Alley Alian" wrote in message
...
And another question,
If ntbackup.exe comes with Windows, why do people bother to purchase a
backup solution software if one comes with the os. NTbackup seems
quite
similiar except i don't thinkit supports the ms exchange server or sql
server backups.
?

Because ntbackup is not robust. It does include such features such as
the
ability to back up open files, the centralized management of backup
hardware
and policies. If you have more than about 20 machines using ntbackup,
it
becomes unmanageable. Plus, there is no facility for special
application
backups (Oracle, Exchange, etc.) Commercial backup products also offer
features such as backup consolidation, multi-streaming, etc.

"Alley Alian" wrote in message
...
Hey.
I had a few questions, about backup at companies.

I'm just guessing on this, because I've never worked at a big
corporation,
but for backups, do the employees of the company usually save all
critical
data on the network server under the folder name that they have
access
to
?
Then whenever a new employee comes in the system adminstor makes
them
a
new
folder to store there critical data ?

Then nightly or how ever often the system adminstraotors desire, you
back
up
the server to tape ? Incremental or full backups ?

Depends on the environment, but I've never worked anywhere where a
company
backs up workstations. Space is allocated on a centralized server or
NAS
device for each user and application, and that where they keep all the
stuff
they want backed up. The only exception to this is laptops, where the
users
have only intermittent access to the network. Even then, most places I
know
of put it on the user to back up their stuff (not necessarily a good
policy).

The "default" backup schedule at most sites I've worked is weekly full
backups, with daily incrementals, which is really overkill for most
sites.
What really should be done depends on the volatility of the data (how
much
changes in a given day). Most user data is about 1% volatile on a daily
basis, in my experience. That is, for every 100 MB on a server, only
about
1 MB changes every day. Of course, that really depends on the
environment.
Sites with strict quotas or special applications have much higher
volatility.

The reason for doing weekly fulls, daily incrementals is to minimize the
number of media required for a restore. If you do fulls on Sunday, and
incrementals after that, and you want to do a complete restore of a
filesystem on the next Saturday, you need Sunday through Friday's
backups.
If you use the same scheme only with monthly fulls, you could need 30
pieces
of media.

If a site has a problem doing full backups on a weekly basis, they can
usually get away with monthly fulls/weekly differentials/daily
incrementals.

You touched on an important point. The backup schedules should never be
decided by the system administrator. Backup schedules are determined by
the
criticality of the data and the amount of resources (money) you can
throw
at
protecting those data. As such, that is solely as business decision.
The
system administrator should be involved (and even decide) on the
technical
aspects of the implementation, but it should never be left to technical
personnel to try to decide which data is how important.

And another question, I think i have the answer but not sure.
I heard of companies buying a bunch of a Windows 2003 servers, I
think
they
do this because maybe the server only handles say 1000 employees ?
So
if
you
have a bunch of servers you can handle more employees to run and
save
data
of the server ?

Again, it depends on the environment and application. It's pretty rare
to
see more than 1000 users with their home directories on a single Windoze
box. CIFS and NFS are applications that a lot of companies have pretty
well
tuned. I only see Windows file servers at small sites where they do it
out
of convenience. But applications like Exchange have definite
performance
limitations, and one box can only effectively serve a finite number of
users.

Then I was reading on Veritas website that 99 % of all the fortune
500
companies run Backup Exec for there backup storage resources.. Why
does
Veritas have such a monopoly on the industry ? Is it really that
good
of
a
product ?

Marketing fluff. Backup Exec is low-end product that a lot of end users
and
small shops like to use. And fortune 500 companies have lots of small
divisions. So if you have 100 data centers in your company, and 1 of
them
is using Backup Exec to manage Exchange backups, you get put on that
list,
even if the majority of the data centers in your company use another
product.

And finally about licenecing, this whole part i'm confused on about
as
well,
do the backup software work similiar to how windows licensees there
products. You buy a licensee to back up 25 users critical data, you
get
more
employees you by a licensee that supports backup for 50 users, etc..
?

Depends on the application. Most companies license by server. So if
you
have 500 users that are on one server all you need is one client license
(plus the backup server license, and whatever else hardware specific
type
stuff you need). The sales rep would be able to explain that to you.

--paul