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SMB backup solutions

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ryansutton
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 8:05 pm    Post subject: SMB backup solutions Reply with quote

I'm in the researching process of looking for a replacement to my current standard for online backup solutions. There are plenty of options out there, wondering if anyone has had experience with them. The requirements for the solution are:

Appliance based - Backups should be cached locally then uploaded to a secure offsite location

Exchange & SQL aware (logs flushed)

Pricing that makes sense for a SMB with <4 TB of data.

The other features are probably standard with most any option - incremental backups, scheduled jobs, alerts etc.

Solutions that I've looked in to and won't work: Axcient & Iron Mountain
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Weaver
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 2:16 am    Post subject: Re: SMB backup solutions Reply with quote

ryansutton wrote:
I'm in the researching process of looking for a replacement to my current standard for online backup solutions. There are plenty of options out there, wondering if anyone has had experience with them. The requirements for the solution are:

Appliance based - Backups should be cached locally then uploaded to a secure offsite location

Exchange & SQL aware (logs flushed)

Pricing that makes sense for a SMB with <4 TB of data.

The other features are probably standard with most any option - incremental backups, scheduled jobs, alerts etc.

Solutions that I've looked in to and won't work: Axcient & Iron Mountain


At face value 4 terabytes of data is not an "S" in the SMB backup load -- hopefully a very large "S" or an "M." The reason why it matters comes down to funds available.

Moving on...

Questions that must be asked:

What is your full backup data set size?
What is the makeup of this data set? -- determines compression and volatility.
What are your retention requirements? (How far back?)
What are your Recovery Time Objectives? (RTO's) for various level of recovery? (single file and disaster recovery scenarios)
What are your Recovery Point Objectives? (Corollary to retention used more often in the realm of recovering full guests)
What kind of funding is available both Capitally (CapEx) and Operationally (OpEx)?

These are all questions that must be asked and can cross items off the list and open up other possibilities.

Out of all of the backup software that I have been privileged to operate over the past ten years one platform stands out above the rest meeting the varying paradigms -- onsite, offsite, replicated, source side de-dupe, compressed, in-guest, vSphere aware, scalable, VSS aware (for SQL, Exchange, AD, and other VSS apps), and simply works -- it is EMC Avamar.

You have several high level options. Look to an EMC Partner to sell you EMC Avamar nodes (hardware with software) directly to which you can backup locally. Optionally replicate them offsite to partner EMC Avamar Nodes (or more of your own offsite). Or buy your own hardware and run Avamar software on it (this is rather new if I recall). Or forget the nodes entirely and find a partner offering EMC Avamar services, install the agents into your guests and enjoy your free time.

In all seriousness Avamar's global source-side block-level de-duplication and compression is absolutely fantastic. Truly minimizes over the WAN transfer -- and works.

http://www.emc.com/products/family2/avamar-family.htm

-Weaver
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PhiBer
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2011 6:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It sounds to me like Ryan is looking for something cheaper rather than more expensive (EMC Avamar sounds pricey).

From my experience, most SMB's make backup decisions based on cost. I still try and stick with Symantec Backup Exec running on an LTO 3 or LTO 4 drive for most small businesses to keep the costs down but the backups reliable.

Most cloud backups cannot back up SQL, Exchange, Active Directory and as such, are useless. You could also try backing up to a RAID-1 USB drive/NAS and then take the backups offsite (although pretty inconvenient as you are constantly mounting/dismounting the USB drive).
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