Backing up server over the internet

[thirdfey]

Hey All,

Need some suggestions. My company is getting a Win2kS webserver that is going to be hosted at an internet and webhosting provider. I'm use to having a server in front of me that I can put a backup tape in but we can't do this with the webserver, the provider doesn't want anyone going into the server room and will not do tape backups for us which I can understand. So i need a way to backup this server to our office which is connected to the internet through cable modem and soon to be DSL, too. The cable modem we get the full throughput of 2.4Mb with 384Kb upload. The DSL line will be 640Kb both ways so are bandwidth is fine.

My plan so far:

• We already have a VPN server setup so we can transfer the backup securely
• Map a network drive through the VPN to our office server that has nightly backups done to it
• Use Veritas Backup Exec on the Webserver to backup t the network drive
• Recovery??? I've never had a server go down on me so I have never done a normal recovery let alone over the web

Does anyone else have to backup over the web? Is there a software suite out there designed to do exactly what I am putting together? Anyone have experience with this?

Thanks in advance for any responses,
Tony

[Bjackso]

You could use VPN I think. But why not use wins on the web server... have it point to a domain controller and then a computer on your domain can back it up using arcserv backup.

-b

[froggiess]

The solution that you are proposing will not work. Backup Exec version 8.x will not backup through a mapped network drive. It will only work with Admin Shares to the remote computer.

However, you could install the Backup Exec Remote Agent on the remote machine, create a "User Defined Share" and back it up.

This is not recommended. Your link is good, but for backup it may be an unnecessary evil.

The best Veritas solution is to use a product called Veritas Storage Replicator for Windows NT/2000. This will allow you to make a replicated copy of ALL data, up to the minute, on a server local to you. Then, you can back that up with your normal backup window. It is a pretty cheap solution that will do what you need. It is great software and works great!!!

[lysergic]

One thing to watch out here for is the cost of your bandwidth and making sure that the backups are factored into your bandwidth usage. Also, personally, I would not use a facility that did not offer a data backup service onsite. What I do is pay a monthly fee (its cheaper then the additional bandwidth charge I would have otherwise), supply the tapes, and every week go and pick up the tapes for offsite storage.

[kannibul]

you could setup the server with a tape drive, and use NTbackup to backup nightly to replace the data ( or as needed)
this of course would be the easiest solution.
over the internet would not make sense as the time for backing something up on that slow of a line would not be efficient. Backing up anything over the network is slow (@10mbit or better) but over a 2.4mbit? or a 768kbit?
too slow for me, I would be worried about data corruption to the backup file, and of course you wouldn't know that until it is too late.

[thirdfey]

Cool, thanks for all the ideas folks. I think we are going to forget about doing a full operating system and all backup and just pull down the website each night and dump the sql database to our network. If the server goes the ISP hosting it said they would restore a backup of the OS from when it was installed with all programs.

Again, thanks for all the great input.