Best Practices for 2010

[jessestaf]

As a company we've grown from around 6 servers to around 70.  We are all Windows based.

Backup Exec is starting to become a nightmare for us.  I wanted some input on the best way to manage backups.

Should we have our Disk to Disk backups of our servers all his the same B2D folder in Backup Exec?  I have a full backup job for each physical server, all going to separate backup to disk folders.  We routinely seem to run out of disk space.  Would it be better to have all my full backup jobs to go one backup to disk folder?

Secondly, I have a tape backup job that hits every physical server.  We always have a few errors and its a pain to dig through the log to find out what really backed up and what didn't.  Is it smarter to make separate backup to tape jobs for every server so I can track those errors or is it best to have just one tape backup job that hits every server?  

[Kiran_Bandi · Accepted solution]

The less number of devices (B2D) and jobs you have, that much comfort you will be having when it comes to managing.

You can target all your B2D jobs at one B2D folder.

Coming to tape based jobs it will a big work to troubleshoot the things if any issue occurs, as you said.

You can split your tape backup jobs, but creating 70 jobs will not be a best practise.

You can create a backup job for a similar set of servers. SQL backups one job, Exchange backups one job, file level backups one job etc...

If you have to take all the 70 servers file level backup, configure as per the backup sizes... Group 7to10 servers into one backup job.

Regards.....

[AmolB]

1) Seperate Database and Flat file backups.

2) Group few servers in a selection list, you may create 5-10 jobs.

3) Since the jobs are going to disk you may run multiple jobs simultaneously.

4) Configure media sets in such way that you dont run short of space.

5) Along with step#4 you may also create duplicate jobs which will copy data from B2D to tapes.

[pkh]

At the minimum, you need two jobs: one with AOFO on to backup your flat files and the other with AOFO off to backup your databases like SQL, Exchange, Sharepoint, etc.

A job can only target one device/media set, so the more devices you have (B2D folders), the more jobs are required.  If you have just 1 B2D folder, then you can have only 1 job to backup all your servers or you can have a few jobs targeting the same folder.

There is no hard and fast rule as to how many jobs you need.  You need to balance these things when it comes to designing your jobs.

1) how easy is it to troubleshoot and re-run your jobs when things fail.

2) If you have many simultaneous jobs, can your server and the disk drive cope?

3) maintenance - scheduling becomes more difficult when you have more jobs.

[CraigV]

Mmm...a single server to back up 70? That's a recipe for disaster.

Why not consider splitting the backups of servers across say 2, 3 or 4 media servers? It means your resources will be better allocated across more backup servers. Back up to disk on those servers, and consider using a CASO server to then replicate/duplicate that data to the tape drive attached to it.

This also means your CASO server can manage the other media servers which should make things more efficient.

[jessestaf]

Guys, thanks so much.  This is great advice.