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Tape Backups are NEVER Reliable - EVER



 
 
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  #11  
Old June 20th 04, 12:45 PM
J. Clarke
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Jolly Student wrote:

Ron:

Thank you for your words of wisdom. I personally like the fast no tape
system but the bug up my butt is that we dont have anything off site. If
you told me to get this or that and that its more reliable than tape, but
that I can TAKE IT OFF SITE, I dont care if it looks like a barbie
lunchbox.
. . sign me up.


I'm not sure if it's the troll in me or if it's just that that image is too
good to pass up. But why not build yourself a couple or three little
mini-ITX machines in Barbie lunchboxen? Assuming of course that Barbie
lunchboxen aren't horribly expensive collectables these days. Just plug it
into the network and do your backup and take it home.

Do you have any info on credible removable SATA HDs in trays and good
carrying cases for offsite backup.


All SATA drives are inherently removable--hot-plug is part of the spec. All
you need is something with the right backplane and mounting rails, similar
to SCA hot-swap enclosures for SCSI. Froogle CSE-M35T1B for one example
from a reputable manufacturer--Supermicro is a well established
manufacturer of server and workstation motherboards and components. Or you
can just run the power and signal cables out a hole in the front of the
case and plug the drive into them.

As for good carrying cases, go to the Pelican site http://www.pelican.com/
and find one the size you want.

Right now I have a pair of Imega 280gb
fire wire drives that I am trying to use for the purpose, but they have
their issues. I still like the convenience of tape on account of size,
but if you are telling me there is something more reliable than tape and
that has the offsite features I am looking for, great, no sweat, I will do
it.


DLT cartridges are only slightly smaller than 3-1/2" disks and somewhat
larger than 2-1/2". LTOs are larger. I don't see the physical dimensions
of the media as an issue unless you're willing to go to helical scan.

I fear that the director will, however, then have another excuse because I
think the issue here is that he just wants to be right. My fear is
protecting our organization from a major disaster and although I am being
overly cautious, I really like the idea of taking a full backup home with
me on a Monday (after full backup on Sunday) and then the baby backups the
other days for the sake of, well, just in case something happens, then its
a pain in the butt, but not a total disaster.

These removable devices that are not tape based, how are they in terms of
ease of portability and size. Well, I know they will not likely be cheap,
but, well. Shoot sir.

Thank you for your time and wisdom.



"Jolly Student" wrote in message
et...
Okay Folks:

Here is one for all of you who thought that people could not get any

dumber.

Yes, I am cross posting here but the recommendations for such are only

in
the case where the subject matter concerns a bunch of groups.


Your cross posts did not appear. What were the other NGs?

I think this
qualifies as such.

I work for a mid-sized company (600 employees) whose "Technology

Director"
has openly said that "Tape backups are not reliable".



For those of us who have been around for quite awhile that statement is

very
accurate. Tape backups have never been really relaible because tape
technology is inherrently unrelaible.

This director had a
"consultant" come in to back up his assertion, a consultant who asked
to check his email via his "AOL" account (indeed, his email address is
something like ).

Enough jokes aside - its going to get serious and this group seems to
be spreading the rumor that "Tape Backups are Always Unreliable".


They are right HOWEVER that does not mean that tapes have no useful

purpose
in any situation.

So we now we have a huge, Raid 5 server that has a pretty decent amount

of
capacity and are using a company's software to that backups are quick

and
slick. Cool, my life is so much easier. But thats it. . . we do NOT

have
an offsite backup, we do NOT have another inhouse SDLT tape backup
drive

and
the entire compliment of our backup resides ONLY on this single Network
Attached Raid 5 server. Sure, its housed in a closet somewhere, but

what
if
we had a catastrophic failure, how about a huge fire, or a plane
hitting

us.

The issue of tapes and offsite backups have little to do with one
another. Offsite backups are generally mandatory.

See, this "consultant" has "clients" in Manhattan who have their
offices

on
the 89th floor, but their Tapeless Backup servers in the basement.


Basement is ok but basement of a building three blocks away is better and
best of all is in a granite mine on a different continent....well no best

is
in quantum entangled storage in another galaxyg.

Errr, is
it me or do basements and the safes that may be contained therein get

buried
under rubble, or are there some group of IT specialists out there who
specialize in nothing but digging out backup servers from the rubble.


It's all a cost risk issue. There may be an inexpensive high bandwidth

link
easily available to the tapeless backup server in the basement but the

link
gets vastly more expensive as the distance grows. For instance generally
such a link within a building has no regulatory requirements except for

fire
code on the wires themselves. Run that same link to a building three

blocks
away may get into a whole bunch of regulated arenas and costs.

Tapeless backup is clearly the way to go in most situations.

As stupid as this question is, I need to basically find credible,

reliable
sources of published information that basically say its really, really,
really dumb to not archive stuff onto some type of medium tape or

otherwise.

You wont find any really smart such claims as tapes just aren't the
answer in many cases.

Backup has little to do with tape.
Backup criteria include:
Offsite. How far is the question?
How many independent(in both number and location) offsite backup copies

are
really needed? Many of the existant backup cycle strategies come from

tape
technology and are often just bunk for pure backup strategy.
How does backup strategy fit with the overall recovery strategy. If the
whole 90 story building collapses then do you have a recovery strategy
whereby the business can start again in two days in temp facilities in
NJ(was the building occupied when it collapsed?)? Maybe the backups in a
hard basement can be dug out faster than the business can start

functioning
again?

This Raid 5 server that we have at our company is not a bottomless pit,

but
the higher ups do not listen to me, only to the "director" who, along

with
their "consultant" has them believing that the system we currently have

in
place is relable.


If well designed it IS rather reliable.

Normally I would just shut my face since my life is a lot easier in

terms
of
backup, hell, set it and forget it is the name of the game. However, I

know
full well that if we ever got hit with a major disaster the "director"

would
be off on his vacation while the rest of us poor slobs had to restore

data
from God knows where. Oh, and if we were to get hit by a brand new,
spanking virus because the "director's" kid came in and did so, well,

our
Network Attached Storage pig would also suffer.


Not if well designed. The 'backup server' I've been talking about is a
server specifically designed for backups and nothing else and therefore
would be highly immue from such external attacks.

In short, I need some type of recommendation, in writing, in some type

of
white paper, from some type of credible sources, that SDLT tape backup
drives, at least for the purpose of long term archiving


Tapes have NEVER been considered a viable "long term archiving" medium.

are not "unreliable"
, they are only as "unreliable" as the poor work habits of the person

who
is
responsible for them.


Reliability is always the sum of all such factors and any backup strategy
should look more towards the least common denominator...Murphy....an
automatic corrollary to Murphiy's law is that tapes are unrelaible. The
proof of that is the incredible cycle strategies that have developed over
the years for tape backups. That comes from the fact that too frequently
the tape isn't usable for any one of a number of reasons.

Oh, and for the record, dear friends of mine swear by SDLT tape drives

and
the like, but I cannot bring an IT manager from CitiCorp into this
discussion because, since he is a friend of mine, his opinion is not
"neutral".


Tapes are on their way out in many situations(NOT ALL).

For all modest configuration servers and workstations I'm telling folks
to use removeable SATA HDs in trays with good carrying cases for offsite
backup. Firewire or USB2 is also viable.



--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
  #12  
Old June 20th 04, 05:53 PM
Homer Simpson
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Why do you need whitepapers on the efficacy of tape backups? Isn't it
obvious that having an off-site tape backup is better than having no
off-site backup?

Here's my advice:

First, I'm the IT director for a company of about 1000 people. We have
approx 20 backups at any given time. My strategy is having an on-site
backup server located as far as possible from the server room (much like
your RAID 5 system in the basement) that keeps a full backup of everything
every day of the week (i.e. 7 full copies), plus weekly copies going back 6
weeks (6 more full copies). All of the daily backups are also copied to
tape and taken off-site (my house, actually).

The backup server is great for fast, random-access restores, but obviously
won't be useful if the building is destroyed. The tape backups are
periodically restored to an off-site server to (1) verify the tapes are
still working, and (2) provide off-site random-access to the data (albeit
an older copy) just in case.

Sure, tapes are not the most reliable backup medium ever invented, but
they're certainly not worthless. When disaster strikes, every little bit
helps, and it would be prudent to have a variety of choices to restore
from. Maybe your boss can see the logic in that? Keep the RAID 5 server
in the basement, but also keep off-site tapes or removable drives, etc...
  #13  
Old June 20th 04, 08:38 PM
Ron Reaugh
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default


"Jolly Student" wrote in message
et...
Ron:

Thank you for your words of wisdom. I personally like the fast no tape
system but the bug up my butt is that we dont have anything off site.


The basement of a large building is significantly close to offsite save
Osama and gaint meteroid impact. Both those have significant requirements
in overall recovery strategy including the possibility that recovery may NOT
be feasible nor attempted.

If
you told me to get this or that and that its more reliable than tape, but
that I can TAKE IT OFF SITE, I dont care if it looks like a barbie

lunchbox.
. . sign me up.


You have to define 'offsite'.

Do you have any info on credible removable SATA HDs in trays and good
carrying cases for offsite backup.


Yep, I've implemented several such systems. KingWin KF-83 rack+tray+3 fans
~$30 with built in shock mounting. There's several padded carrying cases on
the market.

Right now I have a pair of Imega 280gb
fire wire drives that I am trying to use for the purpose, but they have
their issues. I still like the convenience of tape on account of size,

but
if you are telling me there is something more reliable than tape and that
has the offsite features I am looking for, great, no sweat, I will do it.

I fear that the director will, however, then have another excuse because I
think the issue here is that he just wants to be right. My fear is
protecting our organization from a major disaster and although I am being
overly cautious, I really like the idea of taking a full backup home with

me
on a Monday (after full backup on Sunday) and then the baby backups the
other days for the sake of, well, just in case something happens, then its

a
pain in the butt, but not a total disaster.


You are fretting about the basement by some definition not being offsite but
have you covered and considered all the other ways that you could lose it.
In the case of your business if the offices and basement are both totally
destroyed then what are the odds/chances that business recovery will even be
attempted?

These removable devices that are not tape based, how are they in terms of
ease of portability and size.


Quite reasonable and HDs are fast and tape drives are SLOW.

Well, I know they will not likely be cheap,
but, well. Shoot sir.


250GB SATA HD drive is about $200.

"Jolly Student" wrote in message
et...
Okay Folks:

Here is one for all of you who thought that people could not get any

dumber.

Yes, I am cross posting here but the recommendations for such are only

in
the case where the subject matter concerns a bunch of groups.


Your cross posts did not appear. What were the other NGs?

I think this
qualifies as such.

I work for a mid-sized company (600 employees) whose "Technology

Director"
has openly said that "Tape backups are not reliable".



For those of us who have been around for quite awhile that statement is

very
accurate. Tape backups have never been really relaible because tape
technology is inherrently unrelaible.

This director had a
"consultant" come in to back up his assertion, a consultant who asked

to
check his email via his "AOL" account (indeed, his email address is
something like ).

Enough jokes aside - its going to get serious and this group seems to

be
spreading the rumor that "Tape Backups are Always Unreliable".


They are right HOWEVER that does not mean that tapes have no useful

purpose
in any situation.

So we now we have a huge, Raid 5 server that has a pretty decent

amount
of
capacity and are using a company's software to that backups are quick

and
slick. Cool, my life is so much easier. But thats it. . . we do NOT

have
an offsite backup, we do NOT have another inhouse SDLT tape backup

drive
and
the entire compliment of our backup resides ONLY on this single

Network
Attached Raid 5 server. Sure, its housed in a closet somewhere, but

what
if
we had a catastrophic failure, how about a huge fire, or a plane

hitting
us.

The issue of tapes and offsite backups have little to do with one

another.
Offsite backups are generally mandatory.

See, this "consultant" has "clients" in Manhattan who have their

offices
on
the 89th floor, but their Tapeless Backup servers in the basement.


Basement is ok but basement of a building three blocks away is better

and
best of all is in a granite mine on a different continent....well no

best
is
in quantum entangled storage in another galaxyg.

Errr, is
it me or do basements and the safes that may be contained therein get

buried
under rubble, or are there some group of IT specialists out there who
specialize in nothing but digging out backup servers from the rubble.


It's all a cost risk issue. There may be an inexpensive high bandwidth

link
easily available to the tapeless backup server in the basement but the

link
gets vastly more expensive as the distance grows. For instance

generally
such a link within a building has no regulatory requirements except for

fire
code on the wires themselves. Run that same link to a building three

blocks
away may get into a whole bunch of regulated arenas and costs.

Tapeless backup is clearly the way to go in most situations.

As stupid as this question is, I need to basically find credible,

reliable
sources of published information that basically say its really,

really,
really dumb to not archive stuff onto some type of medium tape or

otherwise.

You wont find any really smart such claims as tapes just aren't the

answer
in many cases.

Backup has little to do with tape.
Backup criteria include:
Offsite. How far is the question?
How many independent(in both number and location) offsite backup copies

are
really needed? Many of the existant backup cycle strategies come from

tape
technology and are often just bunk for pure backup strategy.
How does backup strategy fit with the overall recovery strategy. If the
whole 90 story building collapses then do you have a recovery strategy
whereby the business can start again in two days in temp facilities in
NJ(was the building occupied when it collapsed?)? Maybe the backups in

a
hard basement can be dug out faster than the business can start

functioning
again?

This Raid 5 server that we have at our company is not a bottomless

pit,
but
the higher ups do not listen to me, only to the "director" who, along

with
their "consultant" has them believing that the system we currently

have
in
place is relable.


If well designed it IS rather reliable.

Normally I would just shut my face since my life is a lot easier in

terms
of
backup, hell, set it and forget it is the name of the game. However,

I
know
full well that if we ever got hit with a major disaster the "director"

would
be off on his vacation while the rest of us poor slobs had to restore

data
from God knows where. Oh, and if we were to get hit by a brand new,
spanking virus because the "director's" kid came in and did so, well,

our
Network Attached Storage pig would also suffer.


Not if well designed. The 'backup server' I've been talking about is a
server specifically designed for backups and nothing else and therefore
would be highly immue from such external attacks.

In short, I need some type of recommendation, in writing, in some type

of
white paper, from some type of credible sources, that SDLT tape backup
drives, at least for the purpose of long term archiving


Tapes have NEVER been considered a viable "long term archiving" medium.

are not "unreliable"
, they are only as "unreliable" as the poor work habits of the person

who
is
responsible for them.


Reliability is always the sum of all such factors and any backup

strategy
should look more towards the least common denominator...Murphy....an
automatic corrollary to Murphiy's law is that tapes are unrelaible. The
proof of that is the incredible cycle strategies that have developed

over
the years for tape backups. That comes from the fact that too

frequently
the tape isn't usable for any one of a number of reasons.

Oh, and for the record, dear friends of mine swear by SDLT tape drives

and
the like, but I cannot bring an IT manager from CitiCorp into this
discussion because, since he is a friend of mine, his opinion is not
"neutral".


Tapes are on their way out in many situations(NOT ALL).

For all modest configuration servers and workstations I'm telling folks

to
use removeable SATA HDs in trays with good carrying cases for offsite
backup. Firewire or USB2 is also viable.






  #14  
Old June 20th 04, 08:38 PM
Ron Reaugh
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default


"Homer Simpson" wrote in message
...
Why do you need whitepapers on the efficacy of tape backups? Isn't it
obvious that having an off-site tape backup is better than having no
off-site backup?


Don't try to imply that offsite and tape are the same thing. They are NOT!

Here's my advice:

First, I'm the IT director for a company of about 1000 people. We have
approx 20 backups at any given time. My strategy is having an on-site
backup server located as far as possible from the server room (much like
your RAID 5 system in the basement) that keeps a full backup of everything
every day of the week (i.e. 7 full copies), plus weekly copies going back

6
weeks (6 more full copies). All of the daily backups are also copied to
tape and taken off-site (my house, actually).


Not a professional location for a 1000 person company.

The backup server is great for fast, random-access restores, but obviously
won't be useful if the building is destroyed. The tape backups are
periodically restored to an off-site server to (1) verify the tapes are
still working, and (2) provide off-site random-access to the data (albeit
an older copy) just in case.

Sure, tapes are not the most reliable backup medium ever invented, but
they're certainly not worthless. When disaster strikes, every little bit
helps, and it would be prudent to have a variety of choices to restore
from. Maybe your boss can see the logic in that? Keep the RAID 5 server
in the basement, but also keep off-site tapes or removable drives, etc...


Do a real cost analysis and the a cost-risk-benefit analysis and very likely
you'll find that all that is mostly wasted effort and clearly old think.


  #15  
Old June 21st 04, 10:33 AM
Marc de Vries
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 06:24:07 GMT, "Jolly Student"
wrote:

Ron:

Thank you for your words of wisdom. I personally like the fast no tape
system but the bug up my butt is that we dont have anything off site. If
you told me to get this or that and that its more reliable than tape, but
that I can TAKE IT OFF SITE, I dont care if it looks like a barbie lunchbox.
. . sign me up.


Jolly Student:

It seems you are complaining about two different issues at the company
you work with.
1) The necessity to make backups
2) The necessity to bring backups off site.


1) Why you have to make backups is easy to defend. Viruses, a fire in
the serverroom etc, software failures.
Raid controllers only protect you against hardware failures, which is
only about 20% of all outage causes. Human error and software failures
cause all other outage, which you have to protect against with
backups. Don't tell me that nothing happened in your company that you
can't use as an example of what might happen to your server.

But as Ron also said, that doesn't necessarily mean you need tapes.
Just any kind of backup that is suitable in the environment.


2) The case for bringing tapes off site is more difficult to defend.

I would consider taking the backups home with you a serious security
issue. Those tapes contain important data that someone might want to
steal. I assume that your office is better protected against burglars
than your home?

So you need to hire a company to collect the tapes, which can put it
in a safe place (underground bunker or something like that)

The question then is:
How costly is that solution
vs
What does losing all data cost your company and how likely is that
going to happen?


For a company in a 2 story building, a strong safe which is fireproof
might be a perfectly valid on-site location for your backups.
(I know of a dutch university that had the building with their
serverroom burn down to the ground, but after two days they could
collect access the safe in the ruins of the building and do a restore
on new servers).

The chance of an airplane hitting that building/safe is so small that
they don't need off-site backups.

On the 98th floor the situation is of course different. But you
haven't mentioned the situation of your own server.

Directors only care about money.
So what you need to do is show him that using off-site backups is the
cheaper solution in the long run.
If you cannot do that, then your boss is right.
If you can do that he can defend the expense to his boss and will
implement an off-site stragey.

Unfortunately most IT people are very bad at judging/calculating cost
effectiveness of software and hardware.

Marc
  #16  
Old June 21st 04, 12:10 PM
J. Clarke
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Marc de Vries wrote:

On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 06:24:07 GMT, "Jolly Student"
wrote:

Ron:

Thank you for your words of wisdom. I personally like the fast no tape
system but the bug up my butt is that we dont have anything off site. If
you told me to get this or that and that its more reliable than tape, but
that I can TAKE IT OFF SITE, I dont care if it looks like a barbie
lunchbox.
. . sign me up.


Jolly Student:

It seems you are complaining about two different issues at the company
you work with.
1) The necessity to make backups
2) The necessity to bring backups off site.


1) Why you have to make backups is easy to defend. Viruses, a fire in
the serverroom etc, software failures.
Raid controllers only protect you against hardware failures, which is
only about 20% of all outage causes. Human error and software failures
cause all other outage, which you have to protect against with
backups. Don't tell me that nothing happened in your company that you
can't use as an example of what might happen to your server.

But as Ron also said, that doesn't necessarily mean you need tapes.
Just any kind of backup that is suitable in the environment.


2) The case for bringing tapes off site is more difficult to defend.

I would consider taking the backups home with you a serious security
issue. Those tapes contain important data that someone might want to
steal. I assume that your office is better protected against burglars
than your home?


First, the seriousness of the risk of theft of the backup depends on the
circumstances. One company I worked for stored a huge (for the time)
volume of data, all of which had a cash value--if we sold all of it at the
going rate there was easily a million dollars worth of data on that little
tape--but _only_ if obtained from our company with appropriate signatures
and certifications, and with a tiny market for each particular item--there
might be three or four people in the entire world that had any use for it.
Further, everybody who had a use for any of it already had a copy--anybody
who had one was required by law to provide a copy to all interested
parties, but the only legally valid copies were the ones that we provided.
Thus the risk entailed by theft of the backup was nonexistent.

Second, the assumption that the office is "better protected against burglars
than your home" may be true for a defense contractor, but most small
businesses and many medium sized ones have no better security than many
residences. Certainly fewer people have the alarm code for my residence
than have the code for any business where I have been employed.

Third, if that's a real concern then encrypt the backup.

So you need to hire a company to collect the tapes, which can put it
in a safe place (underground bunker or something like that)


Or not, depending on the circumstances.

The question then is:
How costly is that solution
vs
What does losing all data cost your company and how likely is that
going to happen?


The first question is "do you really need to store your daily backup in
someone's underground bunker?"

For a company in a 2 story building, a strong safe which is fireproof
might be a perfectly valid on-site location for your backups.
(I know of a dutch university that had the building with their
serverroom burn down to the ground, but after two days they could
collect access the safe in the ruins of the building and do a restore
on new servers).


They were fortunate. One must weigh the cost of that safe against the other
costs. A safe that can keep data storage media cool enough to remain
useful after a fire that destroys the building is not _cheap_. And given
that they were a university one would assume that they had other buildings
with safes in them, leaving one to wonder why they didn't store the backup
in a different building.

The chance of an airplane hitting that building/safe is so small that
they don't need off-site backups.


The chance of an airplane hitting the World Trade Center was vanishingly
small too. But that was just an example of a disaster of major
proportions. Fire, flood, earthquake, all kinds of major disasters can
happen, some natural, some man-made.

On the 98th floor the situation is of course different. But you
haven't mentioned the situation of your own server.

Directors only care about money.


I don't think he was talking about a Director in the sense of "Board Of".

So what you need to do is show him that using off-site backups is the
cheaper solution in the long run.


Cheaper than what? Most businesses never file a claim with their insurance
company--for them going uninsured is the cheaper solution in the long run.
The trouble is that you can't tell in advance if you are going to be one of
the few who will actually have occasion to collect. Thus most businesses
are insured against a variety of low-probability eventualities. Backup is
the same way--for most businesses it ends up pure cost, never saves the
company a cent.

If you want to be really hardcore about it you could do some statistical
analysis that showed the probability of particular scenarios, the cost of
those scenarios, and the cost of backup strategies that prevent those
scenarios. Getting the data on which to base the analysis could be
difficult though.

If you cannot do that, then your boss is right.
If you can do that he can defend the expense to his boss and will
implement an off-site stragey.

Unfortunately most IT people are very bad at judging/calculating cost
effectiveness of software and hardware.

Marc


--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
  #17  
Old June 21st 04, 04:13 PM
chrisv
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

"sTALe Watch" wrote:

Jolly Student, you and I are cut from the same mold.


Both top posters, too lazy to trim.

  #18  
Old June 21st 04, 05:17 PM
Paul Rubin
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Marc de Vries writes:
2) The case for bringing tapes off site is more difficult to defend.

I would consider taking the backups home with you a serious security
issue. Those tapes contain important data that someone might want to
steal. I assume that your office is better protected against burglars
than your home?


That can be handled rather simply by encrypting the tapes. If someone
steals them without the decryption key, the data is inaccessible.

The parable/marketing blurb at http://www.taobackup.com is well worth
reading for anyone in the OP or his PHB's situation.
  #19  
Old June 22nd 04, 04:59 AM
Midnight Java Junkie
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Oh cut the ****. . . give the guy a break. If his boss is too stupid to
realize that taking something as simple as an SDLT tape home every night for
a grand total cost of ten grand, give the guy a break - he is just trying to
to get some advice and trying to save a poor bunch of slobs the hours.

Top posters and too lazy to trim. Maybe to busy to trim and hope that others
dont pick on everything. . . maybe he worries more about important things,
like disaster recovery.

"chrisv" wrote in message
...
"sTALe Watch" wrote:

Jolly Student, you and I are cut from the same mold.


Both top posters, too lazy to trim.



  #20  
Old June 22nd 04, 03:32 PM
mschlack
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"J. Clarke" wrote in message ...


If you want to be really hardcore about it you could do some statistical
analysis that showed the probability of particular scenarios, the cost of
those scenarios, and the cost of backup strategies that prevent those
scenarios. Getting the data on which to base the analysis could be
difficult though.

If you cannot do that, then your boss is right.
If you can do that he can defend the expense to his boss and will
implement an off-site stragey.

Unfortunately most IT people are very bad at judging/calculating cost
effectiveness of software and hardware.



Believe it or not, backup options have really increased beyond the
usual. I work for a magazine about data storage and we are constantly
running articles on new options. It's free, if you want to see some of
the latest thinking: www.storagemagazine.com (you'll have to register,
but not to worry, no cost/spam involved).

From talking to many people working on this, both vendors and IT
people, I think you need to sort out a couple of things. You're
obviously on solid ground with the need for offsite -- your boss is
swimming way upstream on that. As other
posts have noted, your choice is really how often to offsite and in
what manner. Your RAID backup server will give you quick restore.
Assuming that you have somewhere some kind of images of the
applications and configurations for your servers, the next question is
how many minutes, hours, days worth of the data yoiur apps and users
generate can you live without
should your RAID 5 server be destroyed? That's how often you should
generate an offsite copy, it seems to me.

Your options for offsite are not just to take a tape home. There are
an increasing number of service options. There's trusty old, but
pricey, Iron
Mountain trucks. But there are also online offsite backup services,
which may actually prove cost-effective for you, depending on whether
the
volume of data you have makes online backup practical.

Lastly, it doesn't sound like you have any other office locations, but
a lot of people are looking at new ways to backup over the WAN using
IP.

One thing to clarify: do you have both restore and archive needs?
Restore would be to rebuild after a disaster or after losing or
corrupting specific files. Archive would be for
long term retention -- rarely used data that's taking up space
otherwise but would need to be occasionally mounted at some future
point (like parts drawings for obsolete products). If you're truly
archiving, then tape probably is a must (or optical), since the
reliability of data that's never read on disk drives can't be assumed
for many years (those little old bits can flip on you). SDLT is a
solid choice, in any event.

You'll find a lot of articles on the storagemagazine.com site about
this issue, written by people far smarter than me. Check out stuff by
W. Curtis Preston and James Damoulakis, in particular. These guys
really know their stuff and have worked with dozens of companies on
real installations. They don't have aol accounts either :-0.

The only suggestion I have for handling your boss is to suggest
disaster
recovery drills that include scenarios where your current method will
fail. Maybe walking through it will cause the light to go on.
 




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