Hurricane Planning and the need to restore to PC

[hunt00]

I have a customer running Windows Server 2008 with a Dell PowerVault RD1000 tape drive built into the server.

He also has a portable (USB) Powervault RD 1000.

In the event of a hurricane, he would like to 1) install his USB PowerVault to a PC at home and 2) use his backup tape from the server at his office to 3) restore all files he needs onto his home PC so that he can continue to work even though his office might be without power for several days (and no generator service available in the building his office is located in).

He is currently running Backup Exec 2010 R2 on the server.

A couple of Questions: 1) Can this be done? 2) What licensing does he need from Symantec? 3) With licensing, can he use his Backup Exec 2010 disks to install on a PC or is there other versions of Backup Exec for this purpose?

While I have set up his backup operations using the software, I do not have a lot of familiarity with the program for what he hopes to accomplish. Any help would be of great assistance.

[Colin_Weaver]

Backup Exec only has limited functioanlity for running on a workstation operating system, as such what operating system is going to be running on the home computer as this might be the key fact about any advice that we can give.

[AmolB]

1) Can this be done?

Yes, provided PC's OS is listed in the software compatibility list and also if the tape drive is compatible 

with the OS.

2) What licensing does he need from Symantec

 If you are going to use BE on home PC for few days only than you can run BE in trial mode for 60 days.

3) With licensing, can he use his Backup Exec 2010 disks to install on a PC or is there other versions of Backup Exec for this purpose?

Depends on the OS installed on home PC.

Refer to BE2010 R2 software compatibility list

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH137682

Steps to restore file

1) Install Backup Exec

2) Make sure tape drive is detected by OS and then BE

3) Run an inventory on the tapes

4) Run a catalog job on tapes

5) process with restore.

[hunt00]

Sorry. 64 bit

[AmolB]

Is it WinXP, Vista or Win 7?

As per SCL for client OS, BE2010 can be installed only on Win XP SP2

[hunt00]

I suppose we can find a desktop or laptop that has xp but it seems odd that this has not been upgraded by symantec

[hunt00]

I can't seem to get to the link that you posted, although others have suggested that this is not compatible with Windows 7, and only XP with SP 2.

Any comments on this? Thanks for you quick response.

[pkh]

Windows 7 as a media server is not supported by any version of BE.

[pkh]

If you are going to use BE on home PC for few days only than you can run BE in trial mode for 60 days.

I am surprised that as a Symantec employee, you would give this advice.  The purpose of the trial mode as the name says, is for you to try out the product.  YOU DO NOT USE TRIAL MODE SO THAT YOU CAN USE THE SOFTWARE FOR A FEW DAYS.  

[AmolB]

As per scenario customer already has a license which is being used at the office. 

Customer has mentioned  "In the event of a hurricane" which suggests customer wants to

use BE to recover from disaster which would also give him info about the license which were

installed at the office. In this scenario would you recommend your customer to buy a license

to recover existing license information from the backups. 

[pkh]

 restore all files he needs onto his home PC so that he can continue to work 

Have you read this???

[AmolB]

restore all files he needs onto his home PC so that he can continue to work even though his office might be without power for several days (and no generator service available in the building his office is located in).

Have you read this?? After several days customer wish to work from office and not from home. 

[pkh]

So it is o.k. to use BE on trial mode for work.  When Symantec lawyers come during these kind of situations, I am sure the users of this forum will be quoting your and I hope that you can explain why this is o.k. to your own company lawyers.

[Colin_Weaver · Accepted solution]

Just to clarify something. (Note I am not 100% sure where this is documented publicly so you may need to confirm with our licensing department)

The following is a statement made by one our our product managers in response to an internal query from a pre-sales team member.

"Symantec corp licensing policy allows for a “cold DR” site to be established using the same license key and remain within policy. As long as your customer is not using both BE Media Servers at the same time, I would install the same key(s) on both to make the move easier.

There will be no technical or licensing enforcement issues with this."

In other words as long as the server in your DR site (in this case the users home) is not running backups and is only there for a restore in the event of a disaster he can use the license key from his corporate installation

[CraigV]

Thanks for the clarification COlin!

[hunt00]

Yes, thanks for the clarification, Colin!

I also found the "compatibility" article regarding installing BE onto a PC and it does state that I will need one running Windows XP Pro SP2. It also states that Windows Firewall may conflict, so I plan to turn that off.

I have an XP Pro box, so I will be doing a test to see how all of this works out. Given the scenario with the customer that I described, this appears to be his best option in the event of a disaster.

Thanks to everyone who has posted. I will give credit to Colin in a day or so, and close out the thread.

[Colin_Weaver]

A few pointers that you have not asked

1) When you take the tape home in order to do an actual restore you will need to run an inventory job followed by a catalog job to enable visibility of the restore selections

2) to simplify your scenario try and arrange things so that the critical files that you might need at home would all be on 1 tape each time you run a backup (just a recommendation to make the restore process simpler)

3) if you know you have experienced a disaster then before you do anything with the tape(s), slide the write protect tabs across on each tape cartridge that contains important data (this again is a recommendation designed to make sure that untill your environment is back you cannot accidentally overwrite an important tape until you are very sure it is OK to do so - I know you have no intention of running a backup job or an erase but it is still better to take a precaution than end up sorry later. aka "Stable door closing vs bolted horse")

[hunt00]

Colin, if I set this pc up in his office to test, and then take the tape back out to use normally with his 2008 server, will I 1) have to reset the job at the server and 2) run a inventory/ catalog job again on the pc when the disaster scenario actually happens?

[Colin_Weaver]

As long as you don't write anything new to the tape the process (Assuming Backup Exec is already installed and the tape drives work on both servers ) would be

1) Backup Job completes sucessfully on Corporate server

2) Tape is ejected and inserted in tape drive on DR server( User workstation)

3) Inventory and Catalog jobs are run on the DR server against the tape - note this does not write to the tape, what it does is prepare the Backup Exec database on the DR server so it knows about the tape and generates a catalog on the DR server so it knows what data is on the tape.

4) Run your test restore job (again no data is written to the tape)

5) Return the tape back to the drive connected to the Corporate server

6) Run an inventory job on the drive in the corporate server ( no catalog job is needed as the catalogs will still be on the server, the inventory job is needed just to identify that the tape is in the drive.)

7) Use the tape as normal.

There are some very slight differences if a tape library is involved (possible use of Export and Import jobs) and Steps 2-4 should all work with the physical write protect tab on the tape cartridge slide across, just slide it back again for step 5.

[hunt00]

Client is aware that if he changes a file that has been restored on his pc at home he must basically save it to a flash drive or email it to himself so that he can then overwrite it back at his office when the power returns. Thank, Colin.