How to scope a client's backup requirements?

Some other ones may be :

how often the data changes - daily changes means daily backup of that information

who will be responsible for the backup and recovery plan

what time is best to run the backups - off peak hours = smoother and faster backups

Are there any older operating systems or database technologies in the enviornment (i.e, pre windows 2003?)

Are they planning to use DeDup (in which case you will probably need new hardware to run Windows 2008 x64 with plenty of RAM and CPU capability)

Can they use existing libraries or do you need to come up with a library solution?

etc

You can also set the RTO (Recovery Time Object) and RPO (Recovery Point Object).

RPO is the time (min. hr. etc...) which says how many data you can lose. For example i can live without my yesterdays mailings. RPO -> 1day
RTO is the time (min. hr. etc...) which says how quick the data has to be recovered to my system after failure. If its Hight Available system the RTO is somewhere about 5 minutes.

Regards

It should ALWAYS start with the business requirements.

These include the RTO and RPO.

From there, once the business has dictated when they want to be backup, the technical requirements will follow.  Keep in mind the lower the RTO or RPO, the cost goes up exponentially.  a 48hr RTO may cost X, but a 4Hr RTO will cost some 25x what 48hrs would cost.

The very basic things to understand are How much data, backup schedules, break down data into types (e.g. databases, files, vmware, etc) and how much of each, data retention, and how many clients and what OS.

If all of the above are listed, everything falls into place by most vendors.

Also include/mitigate with what other High Availabilty solutions are in the organisation that may have an impact on the RTO/RPO

For example SANS, clustering and log shipping features in applications like SQL Server and exchange.

So it is really not just the clients backup requirements, but also its DR/BC requirements as well

Hi CraigV ,

Thank you very much. This was very very helpful. Hope to hear from you on my other post.

Hi Gregmfg ,

Thank you also for sharing your thoughts. Very helpful indeed.

Hi Colin Weaver ,

Thanks for the additional info. I'll take note of this.

Good Day!

Hi Norad,

Thank you for your advice. I'll remember these things.