Backup beyond Small Business Server

[StefanoFereri]

Hi forum,

I've read for days now, but don't get the idea how backup is done in times beyond MS SBS, i.e. in times of virtualization. Many comments describe environments, where an extra server for backup purposes exist or a NAS or something like that. But the typical SMB scenario is: No separate room for server, server tower includes tape drive and is located somewhere in the office, often beneath a desk. No room and money for additional server or NAS hardware.

Up to now we used SBS 2003/2008/2011, and now we're forced to aggregate SBS components within one Hyper-V host and two VMs (one for Exchange Server, one for DC, user data and all the rest), still only on one single machine.

Formerly we usually backed up our SBS onto internal LTO tape drive, doing full backup on Fridays and differential or incremental backups on the other days of week. For disaster recovery we used separate programs, specialized in imaging, because DR option of BE and others usually did not work and we nearly never had to restore the whole computer (at least I never did) and because solid imaging software is for free. Restoring files, folders or e-mail items was, on the other hand, a daily job, which our customers expect to be executed within minutes. We only needed to change the tape once a day, had multiple backup generations and were even able to restore files or e-mails, that where deleted months ago.

What we need now is:

1. Periodically fullbackup of host and both VMs, so that the whole system or a single VM can be restored to a running state
2. File- and e-mail tape backups from inside of the VM, truncation of e-mail log files
3. Schedule these weekly full and daily incremental backupsk - as formerly
4. Restore of single files or E-Mail-Items from tape within minutes and without any downtime - as formerly

Where can BE help and how? As far as I see BE comes into consideration for No. 2 - 4. No. 1 could or should be done by a simple copy action or by imaging software. Since this is done not that often, it could be done manually and images can be stored on any USB drive. But what to do with No. 2 - 4? Remember: No extra backup server, only internal tape drive, no way to install any software onto the host (as everybody strongly recommends).

Does someone feel like sharing his or her experience?

Thanks and regards,
Stefano

[pkh]

no way to install any software onto the host

Unless the host is a Core OS, you can install BE on the host.  This is the recommended way.

You would probably use the BE SB edition which comes with a Hyper-V agent.  This would allow you to backup the VM's as VM's and there are sufficient Agent for Applications and Databases licences to allow you to do GRT restores of mail items and databases.  Since you are backing up to tape, you got to ensure that you have sufficient disk space to stage the VM's for restores.  Depending on the size of these VM's, the staging would be more than a few minutes.  To reduce restore time, you could have sufficient disk space to backup to disk

For No. 1, you can use SDR to speed up the recovery of the host.

[StefanoFereri]

PKH,

thanks a lot for your input. I'm not quite sure what you are referring to if you state

Since you are backing up to tape, you got to ensure that you have sufficient disk space to stage the VM's for restores.

For single file or e-mail restore this should not be necessary if I use the "Agent for Windows", and for restoring a VM it should not be necessary to primarily "stage" it, right?

So the solution with BE could be:

1. Attach an external tape drive to a client computer, install BE SB on this computer, which must not be shut down respectively wake up at scheduled time (I would not install an application, which includes services and drivers and which has to be patched from time to time, onto a system, that is responsible for runnning my servers)

2. Run daily incremental and once a week full backup of files and e-mails via "Agents for Windows", which are installed within each of the two VM's

3. Setup another job within BE to copy both VM's onto tape or onto the local disk of the client computer (which then acts as "media server") - assuming this is possible without installing any agent onto the host system

4. Image the host system itself from time to time manually

Could this be a solution?

Thanks a lot in advance for your patience,
Stefano

[VJware]

Using the Hyper-V agent, you can run a single-pass backup of your VMs (with the agent for Windows installed inside the VMs and GRT enabled), and this gives the ability to restore not only individual files/folders but also the complete VM. When restoring individual files/folders from the VM and when the backup is made to tape using the Hyper-V agent, the VM will be "staged" on disk allowing the restore to process.

Secondly, using a tape storage connected to a media server (which is a VM) can lead to various problems & as suggested above, better to install BE on the host itself or else choose disk storage instead of tape.

[StefanoFereri]

VJware, thanks for input.

So I understand when using tapes there is no way with BE to restore single items without staging. I guess that makes it too complicated. I cannot expand the size of expensive server RAIDs or add extra hardware like NAS etc. only to hold staged VM's. And it's to time consuming to stage a whole VM before you start the process of restoring a single item.

When you say "using a tape storage connected to a media server (which is a VM) can lead to various problems", does that mean there are no problems when the client computer I was talking about is a simple physical Windows-8.1-Computer? Backup traffic has to go over network then, but I'm using LTO 2 in these small companies and network bandwidth should be enough for this to prevent tape drive from lethal stop and go.

Regards,
Stefano

[Colin_Weaver]

The problems with using physical tape devices when the Backup Exec media server is virtualized relate to the passthrough connectivity to the hardware. The few customers that have tried such configurations have experienced all sorts of issues from devices going offline for no apparent reason, right through to everything appearing online but being unable to operate the robotic arm to move a tape into a drive or write to a tape in a drive.

The problems are intermittent (but on average more unreliable than reliable) and the temporary solutions to such problems seem to be be restart the media server and sometimes the Hyper-Visor host as well (not good)

Hence we cannot provide support (for passthrough, in theory an iSCSI capable library as listed in our HCL should be able to be used with a virtual media server, although please do not attempt to use a software iSCSI solution on a separate system that has the tape device attached)

The requirements for staging to get at GRT information during a restore from tape are because there is no ability to mount a large file (such as a VMDK,VHD or Exchange EDB etc) directly from a tape in order to access one small file or e-mail from within the VMDK or EDB etc. However if we can get the large file onto a disk we can do a virtual mount and then directly access the area within the file.

For these reasons to use GRT efficiently, recommended practice is do your initial backups to disk storage devices (including deduplication) for short/medium term restore requests of individual data, with duplication to tape to cover long term and DR scenarios where the timescales for restore can be extended. This of course does need enough disk space to achieve your short/medium term restore capability requirements but avoids the staging requirement becuase the backup sets are already on disk.

[pkh]

The media server is where you install BE, not the client, and any backup media, the tape drive, must be attached to the media server Also, BE and the remote agent needs to be patched from time to time and reboots are required

[StefanoFereri]

Hi Colin,

thanks a lot for your input, I appreciate your efforts (and thanks to the others as well, of course :) ).

The requirements for staging to get at GRT information during a restore from tape are because there is no ability to mount a large file...

I understood that so far. My problem in understanding however was, WHY BE is backing up "large files". Obviously I did not get the concept of the BE agents. I always thought, if you have to install an agent within a VM and you explicitely are offered to set an option for doing "GRT", then it's NOT the "large file" (the VM) that's getting backed up. I assumed that this construction has the purpose to get a file based backup respectively a mail store backup as we know it from physical servers. So finally BE can only backup a VM in a whole and restore single files. Ok. Than there is no more incremental / differential backup, right?

The problems with using physical tape devices when the Backup Exec media server is virtualized...

Ah, now I understand, why you continue to talk about virtualized media server: BE cannot be installed on Windows 8.1 client, right? Ok, could have had this idea myself... :)

Then indeed the only solution for a small business, that has no room for a second physical media server, is running BE on the host. But as PKH says: "BE and the remote agent needs to be psyched from time to time and reboots are required", and that's why this is not a solution to me. But for others, who do not hesitate to do so, and for those readers, who want to get the idea of backing up a virtual environment with Hyper-V, the solution would finally look like this:

1. Add some simple and big SATA disks to your server

2. Install BE on host

3. Have BE make daily backups of your VM's, with GRT enabled, onto these disks and keep one set for each day of week (may be with deduplication), retention: one week

4. Have BE make a daily image backup of it's own fundament, the host OS, onto disks (is BE capable of that?)

5. Create another daily Job in BE to copy the (primarily de-deduplicated) VM's and images onto tape

Right?

The pros I see: You're able to restore a complete VM or single files or Exchange items directly from disk, if not older then one week (if older, VM must be staged from tape to disk).

Problems I see: Required size of backup disks (5 versions of 2 VM's and of the Hyper-V-Image) and required space on tapes, because there are no differential / incremental backups.

Regards,
Stefano

[TimFabian]

Dear forum,

This is exactly what I'm looking for!!! Could someone please comment on the modules of Backup Exec, which will be needed for exact this configuration (successor of SBS with 2 guests servers, 1 internal tape drive and internal disks for nearline backups and staging)?

Thanks,
Tim