Hi,
I'm about to take the plunge and put BackupExec in place here. There are a few questions about what I'd like to achieve that would be good to get both public and Symantec responses to to see if it can be achieved.
I have about 120 users that I'd like to backup (we're not talking about server backups, I have that covered). I Like the idea of the end-user recovery with the DLO so that's what I'll be going with. My idea scenario would be something like this:
Use BackupExec to dump end-user systems to a large storage 'blob' e.g. simple SAN device - circa 2.5TB of data connected via a small server (which will run the main BackupExec license). Incrementally backup changes throughout the day for approximately 30 days. Rough estimates show that to be around a further 500GB of changes over 30 days. This then gives the users the ability to self-restore anything from the past 30 day period.
I also want to take the BackupExec data and dump it to tape on a daily or weekly basis for DR purposes so I'll be using BE to a quantum autoloader to dump the 4TB of data to tapes.
My questions are:
1. Do I just need the BackupExec license and the 120 DLO's to achieve this or something else?
2. Can I do a granular recovery of the data from tape e.g. If a user says they had a file 3 months ago and I know that I have the backup data on tape, can I just restore the individual file or would I need to restore the entire 4TB data then get the user or me to check their backup?
3. Tapes will most likely be the DLT-S4 variety at 800GB native capacity. Obviously a 4TB backup is going to use around 5 tapes. If 1 tape is damaged or corrupt, is my whole backup set lost, or can BE safely look at e.g. the 4th tape without needing to see the first 3?
4. Is there a better way to do this?
Hope people have answers.
Matt