Backup Destination and remote Offsite Copy

[Stylax]

Apologies if these seem like dumb questions..

We have a branch office nearby connected over an uncontended 10Mbps leased line.

Would it we sensible/practical to use a Backup Destination folder on the network at this branch office remote location as the backup destination target ?

Or should we really be creating the initial recovery points to a local Backup Destination folder first and then use the Offsite Copy option to copy them to the remote folder at the branch office ? Obviously this has the advantage that a local set of backup recovery files are always on hand locally for rapid access.

Will the program have trouble creating and managing/cataloging recovery points over this slower WAN link ? I suspect that this will be the case as the number of files increases.

The program certainly seems happier managing the recovery points when they are local, for when I try to set this up with the recovery points created at the remote site after there are a few then the program seems to respond much slower when you open it up to interrogate things.

Also in order to do this we had to create the base recovery points locally and then take them to the remote site and copy them into a folder.
The base backup was 12GB so we could have just about created this over the WAN link, but this is just a trial at the moment and we are hoping to use this on a server of around 200GB plus. Obviously it's going to be impractical to move this base copy across the WAN link so we were planning on transporting this across manually. Does it matter that we do this and just copy the base copy into the remote folder ?

Or if we work as per how it is described in the manual and create the Backup Destination folder locally and then elect to use Office Copy option to create remote copies..how ought we get the initial 200GB or so base copy to the remote site folder ? just leave it running for days ? or again create the initial Offsite copy locally to a ext USB drive and then transport this to the remote location and then add the smaller copies to itacross the WAN link ?

Also does it matter what type of media I create the backup recovery points onto ?
I have a choice of locally connected external USB drives or a NAS box on the local LAN.
Which would be best ? Does it come down to which I would be most happier restoring from in the vent that this became necessary ?

And am I correct in assuming that when a full restore is performed just the latest set of recovery points are used along with the base recovery points ?

Or is it the latest set along all the other preceeding sets and the base set ? I suspect the latter ?

Thanks

[Markus_Koestler]

Lots of questions but here we go:

Would it we sensible/practical to use a Backup Destination folder on the network at this branch office remote location as the backup destination target ?

--> From my point of view and out of my experience: YES !

Will the program have trouble creating and managing/cataloging recovery points over this slower WAN link ?

--> Out of my experience, managing is not the problem, creating is the more critical task if the latency and the timeouts over the WAN link are to high.

 Does it matter that we do this and just copy the base copy into the remote folder ?

-->It does matter. Because BESR uses this v2i files to store information about the recovery points, you should not copy the base backup by hand. Only the office copy feature (or creating it in the first place in the remote office) ensures that the v2i files are updated and BESR can use the backup.

how ought we get the initial 200GB or so base copy to the remote site folder ? just leave it running for days ?

-->You could enable the compression feature, this could decrease the size of the base backup to 50-70% depending on the data you have.

or again create the initial Offsite copy locally to a ext USB drive and then transport this to the remote location and then add the smaller copies to itacross the WAN link ?

--> I don't think that you could do it this way. For each recovery point set, you can only specify ONE backup destination. if this is the ext USB drive as drive X: you can't , afaik, tell BESR to create only the base backups to this device and the incrementals to another device.

Also does it matter what type of media I create the backup recovery points onto ?
I have a choice of locally connected external USB drives or a NAS box on the local LAN.
Which would be best ? Does it come down to which I would be most happier restoring from in the vent that this became necessary ?

-->I have only experience with NAS boxes and my experience tells me that it really depends on the NAS device. Some show good read performance, some good write performance. Go and check the tech specs of your NAS device. But I think USB 2.0 is generally faster than a 100 Mbit LAN.

And am I correct in assuming that when a full restore is performed just the latest set of recovery points are used along with the base recovery points ?Or is it the latest set along all the other preceeding sets and the base set ? I suspect the latter ?

--> If you choose to retain a number of backups sets (full+incrementals) you can select any of the sets and do the restore. If you have choosen a certain set, which needs not to be the latest, BESR automatically consolidates the full and the incremental backups for the restore.

Hope this helps !

[Stylax]

Would it we sensible/practical to use a Backup Destination folder on the network at this branch office remote location as the backup destination target ?

--> From my point of view and out of my experience: YES !

Will the program have trouble creating and managing/cataloging recovery points over this slower WAN link ?

--> Out of my experience, managing is not the problem, creating is the more critical task if the latency and the timeouts over the WAN link are to high. 

Hmm..are you sure..what size backups have you elected to ues a Backup Destination target over a WAN ?

I'm definetly seeing issues with opening up the management console on a backup destination where I created a 12GB base on a NAS drive whilst it was on the local LAN, I then moved this to a remote site and mapped the same drive letter to the share on the NAS at the remote site over a 10Mbps leased line and it definately seems to be getting longer opening the console the more additional receovery points are added to it.

Additional recovery points are about 2GB per day..

I'll bring it back to the main site and see what happens.

Reading the manual some more, I know RTFM :-),  I really don't think that the application's 'Backup Destination was designed to be created away from the local network, it seems that this is what the 'Offsite Copy' is for, not the 'Backup Destination'.  ..If I am reading this correctly.

Does it matter that we do this and just copy the base copy into the remote folder ?

-->It does matter. Because BESR uses this v2i files to store information about the recovery points, you should not copy the base backup by hand. Only the office copy feature (or creating it in the first place in the remote office) ensures that the v2i files are updated and BESR can use the backup.

how ought we get the initial 200GB or so base copy to the remote site folder ? just leave it running for days ?

-->You could enable the compression feature, this could decrease the size of the base backup to 50-70% depending on the data you have. 

I would have thought that you ought somehow to be able to take a locally created 'Offisite Copy', perhaps held on an ext USB drive, to a remote location say to a Data Center, and then copy the entire folder along with it's sv2i file into a folder at the Data Center and then reconfigure the backup job and make this the Offsite Copy target ?

Would this need reconfiguring in the backup job or an addtional new Offsite Copy job creating ?

Does BESR recognize/keep track of the media that the Offsite Copy was created on and require future additional recovery points to be physically located on the same media destination ? Or does it not matter so long as the sv2i file is present in the same folder as the base recovery points ?

How else are you going to get base recovery point copies to remote storage folder locations?

Even with compression it's not going to be practical doing several hundred GB base recovery points over a WAN connection...unless you have some fanstastically fast connection.

Most remote backup companies seem to require you so transport your base or 'seed' copy to the remote storage location snd then expect you to only copy around 2-3GB per day to add to this.

--> I don't think that you could do it this way. For each recovery point set, you can only specify ONE backup destination. if this is the ext USB drive as drive X: you can't , afaik, tell BESR to create only the base backups to this device and the incrementals to another device. 

But I think again this is where you shoiuld not be using the Backup Destination as the remote target, It seems that you can make more than one Offsite Copy target if i'm reading the manual correctly.

So what I think I'm looking at doing overall is:

Creating a Backup Destination on the local LAN to an ext USB or local NAS drive.
This then becomes my first port of call for any local disasters should the server go belly up.
This also makes local mamangement of the system speedy as the main recovery points are all on the local LAN.

If the whole site is lost then I need to guard against this by creating an Offsite Copy/Copies initially by using a locally connected ext USB drive in order to capture the very large initial base recovery points and then transport this to a remote Data Center where I copy the contents into a folder on the remote storage system. Then reconfigure the system ( create an additional Offsite Copy, this is where I getting confused as to what to do ) to look to the same recovery points and sv2i files which was on the ext USB drive and then subsequently add the daily additional recovery points to this remote destiation.
If I lose the main site I just travel to the Data Center and copy the folder and all it's contents back onto an ext USB drive and then recover to new server hardware.

Am I on the right track ?

I'll continue reading the manual some more, I hate online manuals, if it was printed out I'd have dipped into it before now..I know I coould always print it out myself :)

[Markus_Koestler]

I also see that BESR behaves slower when you open recovery points over a WAN link, but since in our enviroment restores don't happen very often, this is no problem with me. I agree, you'd better use offsite copy for you setting. Well it really depends on the amount of data you have to backup wheter you can afford to write directly to a backup destination over a WAN link.

Or does it not matter so long as the sv2i file is present in the same folder as the base recovery points ?-->Yes

Am I on the right track ?

-->Generally I think yes, the only point where I'm not sure is the additional offsite copy job. But give it a try and let me know the results!

[Stylax]

>>Or does it not matter so long as the sv2i file is present in the same folder as the base recovery points ?-->Yes 

OK, you seem to be right, that didn't work... :(

I configured a local LAN Backup destination to an ext USB drive, drive G:\, and created the main base recovery points, they currently total some 155GB.

I then setup an Offsite Copy to a second ext USB drive, drive H:\,  which after a short time the base recovery points propagated to.

So far so good..

I then disconnected the second ext USB drive H:\ and took it to the remote location and copied all the contents of this second drive including the sv2i file and the VProRecovery folder to a shared folder at the remote site.

I then went back to the local site and mapped a H:\ drive on the BESR machine to this remote shared folder, assuming that because all the files previously on the Offsite Copy USB drive target were now present on the H:\ mapped drive things would work.

I then ran a manual backup and created some additional incremental recovery points in the local BESR Backup Destation target folder on the G:\ drive, these were not very large about a couple of GB.

I then waited overnight to see if these then propagated to the H:\ drive....and they did not..and can't see anything in the event log as to why not.

Am I correct in assuming that as soon as the main backup is finished then BESR starts to execute the Offiste Copy shortly afterwards ?
When the drive was connected locally this appeared to be the case. I'm guessing that as soon as I reconnect the USB drive back to the BESR machine the it will start to create the additional recovery points onto there, so long as I remove my H:\ mapped drive first and let the system reassign the H:\ drive back to this second ext USB drive. Hmmm..

So are we saying that it isn't possible to just substitute a local USB drive assigned H:\ with a mapped drive to a remote shared folder, even though they contain the exact same thing, and use this as the target for the Offsite Copy of the incremental recovery points ?

How on earth am I supposed to get a copy of my base recovery files to the offsite location when they toal 155GB or in future even larger ?

Are we saying that the only way to make Offisite Copy work to a remote shared folder location is to actually create that target in the first place and then just wait for the base recovery points to eventually replicaite ? that sound like madness ? that might take days depending on the speed of connection.

I could try using compression like you said and see how long it takes...just for fun like.. ;)

What kind of speeds are expected prerequsites for doing this kind of thing ?

I guess it really depends on how much data you have but I'd of thought that data in excess of 100GB wasn't uncommon these days.

Surely there must be some way to intervene and transport the large base recovery points to an Offsite Remote location and then hook things back up ?

I can't be the only person wanting to do this ? can I ?

Is there any other way to acheive what I'm trying to do with BESR ?

[Markus_Koestler]

Are we saying that the only way to make Offisite Copy work to a remote shared folder location is to actually create that target in the first place and then just wait for the base recovery points to eventually replicaite ? -> Yes

that sound like madness ? ->Yes

Surely there must be some way to intervene and transport the large base recovery points to an Offsite Remote location and then hook things back up ?

-->Hm, the only way I think you can do this is by looking at the SV2I file and tweaking the path and image file settings there.

[Stylax]

That said..in my earlier experiment whereby I created a shared  folder on a NAS drive whilst it was attached to the local letwork, targetted this as the Backup Desitnation by way of a drive mapping, ran a backup and created the large base recovery points onto this NAS drive.

Then I transported this to the remote location, changed the IP of the NAS drive to fit into the remote network and then remapped the same drive letter to the same folder on the local BESR machine.

..this continued to work each day adding the smaller incremental additional recovery points.

So it would seem to work like this albeit this is disregarding the Offsite Copy function completely, unless I wanted to pop some recovery points on a local ext USB drive to rotate and take home each day...

So to be honest it does what it says on the tin, it creates copies of recovery points to take away offsite, ie pop in your pocket and go home.

And although it can perform targetted offsite copies of recovery points unless you have a very fast connection to your remote offsite target then Offsite Copy isn't going to hugely practical.

Now if it were called 'Remote' Offsite Copy then I think they'd have a case to answer ;)

So I think I'll continue to pursue the Backup Detination folder target route for now..unless anyone else has any bright ideas ?

Thanks Marcus.

[Markus_Koestler]

No problem. So may I ask you to mark this post as solved ?

[Stylax]

Can we leave it open for a short while to see if anyone else can come up with anything ?

One or two things I'd like to check out as well.

[criley · Accepted solution]

jdrsmith,

There is a lot of information in this thread and clearly you have tried various things. It's tricky for me to attempt to comment or answer all of them now.

That said, as Markus has pointed out, ultimately it depends on the speed of your network connection AND on the amount of data you need to transfer. It sounds as though you only have an issue when trying to transfer the base (full) recovery point (incrementals are working fine, right?).

To answer one of the comments above; the primary backup destination can be pretty much anything you want (local disk, local USB, local or remote network share, NAS etc) but it basically boils down to the network path as to which one is more practical to use.

Based on your scenario, backing up to a local device (USB, network share) sounds like the best option and then use offsite copy to transfer to your remote office. At the end of the day, you might need to consider improving the network connection between the two locations (this is just a thought). Alternatively, have you considered trying the 'Divide into smaller files to simplify archiving' option (advanced options of backup job) to see if this helps with the transfer to your remote office?

Any further questions, just let us know.

[Stylax]

Hi Chris,

I'll give that a go, though I suspect it's not really going to matter what I do regarding the Offisite Copy, unless you have a very high speed line then several hundred GB just isn't really tenable is it.

I'd have very much like to have been able to do the Offiste Copy of the very large base reocvery points to a local USB drive and then transport this to the remote site, perhaps upload it or pop it into a folder on a NAS at the remote site and make this avaliable back to the local site for it to add the smaller incremental recovery points but it seems that this cannot be acheived.I don't think you can edit the destination of an Offiste Copy and change it from a USB drive used to create the initial large base recovery points copies to a different remote location containg the same.
This is what I'd ideally like to do.

From what I've read about cloud backup this is what many providers expect you to do it would seem.

Many of them talk about creating the large seed backup locally and then transporting this to the provider on disk and from there onwards you transfer the smaller incremental backups over an internet connection on a daily basis.

I just wanted to use a Symantec backup product to try and do this as opposed to an online cloud backup vendors proprietry software.

We're looking into a co-lo and siting a server to house remote offsite backups onto, but we aren't really going to be able to send the large base recovery points over the connection as this would just take far too long.

What I have discovered is that if I use a NAS on the local network and then do the main Backup Destination to that create the large base recovery points and then transport this to the remote location then this works..forgetting all about the Offsite Copy option.

..ah..just had a thought...what if I set a mapped folder to a NAS whilst on the local LAN, chose this as the Offsite Copy then transport the same NAS to the remote location, changed its IP address and simply mapped the drive again that ought to still work shouldn't it ? ie I'm not moving the base recovery points from one physical drive to another as I was earlier with the USB drive.

So perhaps use a USB drive for the local Backup Destination, or another NAS, and a NAS for the Offisite Copy which is prepared locally first and them relocated.

Seems that certain devices are being given nicknames of sorts which is queering the pitch regards USB drives.

Not sure whther it's doing this for the NAS as well, I'll try it and see. :)

[Stylax]

OK, that was a bit more sucessful !

Instead of creating the Offsite Copy to a local ext USB drive I created it onto a mapped I:\ drive to a shared folder on a local NAS instead..

I then did an initial backup and created my local base recovery points to my local Backup Destination and once this had completed BESR made copies in the target shared folder on the locally connected NAS drive as specified in the Offsite Copy settings.

I then ran two more incremental backups which were created sucessfully into the local Backup Destination and also copied sucessfully to the Offsite Copy shared folder on the NAS, still connected locally at this stage.

I then took the NAS to the remote location, changed it's IP address to match the remote network, bit of sorting out of DNS records required..

Then back to the local BESR server and run another backup, it created the Backup Desitination recovery points OK and then low and behold it created the copies onto the mapped drive on the NAS drive even though it was now at the remote location, they were numbered correctly ie the next in the sequence.

All I need to do now is to do a full recovery using the most recent recovery points from the remote NAS and then I'll be happy.

So NAS seems to be the way to go.. :)