Best practices for laptop backup?

[Guy_Scharf]

I'd appreciate recommendations on the best way to manage backups of laptops.

For our workstations--which are always connected--I have set SSR to make incremental backups at specific times and full backups on other specific times and dates.  The backup destination is the server.  From the server, I send a magic packet to the workstation to wake up a few minutes before the scheduled SSR backup so that SSR runs the backup at its scheduled time.  Sure, that means I have to manually co-ordinate the magic packet time with the SSR settings on the workstation, but we have only a dozen machines so that's a tolerable burden.

That appears to be working well for permanently connected computers.  But it's not effective for laptops, which may or may not be connected at any particular time.  Worse, if a laptop is turned on at a scheduled SSR backup time, SSR creates an error email because it cannot reach the server.

I don't want to ask the user to run backups manually only when connected.  I don't even want them to know how to start a SSR backup.

While I could turn off the error emails from SSR on the laptops, that will leave me completely in the dark about whether anything is working.

I would appreciate recommendations on how to back up intermittently connected computers.

Thanks!

[Markus_Koestler]

Hm, good question. The only thing I can think of is that you do some magic in a pre command file. SSR by itself only allows you to trigger a backup on one of this events:

-Any application is installed or uninstall

-Specific applications are launched

-Any user logs on to the computer

-Any user logs off to the computer

-Data added to the drive exceeds

[Guy_Scharf]

Ok, let's try magic....

In a pre command file, I could determine whether the laptop was connected and able to make a backup.  If it wasn't, can I cause SSR to terminate the backup process without throwing an error?  I'd prefer not to have SSR send an error email.

[Markus_Koestler]

Why bother about the email ? If the laptop is not connected to the network the email doesn't get sent anyway ?!

[Guy_Scharf]

Email can always be sent as long as the laptop is connected to the internet anywhere.  We use an external ISP for mail, not in-house.  (A laptop that couldn't send email without being connected to the internal network would be useless to us.)

Guy

[criley]

One way would be to do a shutdown of the system recovery service when your command file determines the laptop is outside your network. Not the cleanest option but it may work.

I would recommend that you submit an enhancement request as it would be good to get this functionality into the product itself:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/backup-and-archiving/ideas

[Markus_Koestler]

Have you implemented a solution yet ?

[Guy_Scharf]

No, not yet.  I'm in the midst of migrating the server to 2008R2 and all workstations to Win 7, so that has my full attention for now.  Laptop backups are deferred for a few more weeks.

I had hoped to be able to define a backup job with a recovery point set but with no schedule, then iniitiate either incremental or full backup of that job from a script.  But I couldn't find how to create a recovery point set job without a schedule.

[Markus_Koestler]

Hm, you can also start the job from a VBS script.

[Guy_Scharf]

Yes, I was planning to start the job from a VBS script.  But I couldn't figure out how to define the job, preferably from the UI, without any schedule.  I can create a standalone recovery point job without a schedule but could not create a recovery point set job without a schedule.

[Markus_Koestler]

Hm, have a look at my scripts for creating backup jobs, you might be able to assign an empty schedule to the job: https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/downloads/vbs-files-configuring-besr-8x7x-license-smtp-options-and-creating-backup-jobs

[Niles_Foster]

For me, the best solution was to set the "Any user logs on to the computer" option and imported the DefaultPerformance.reg file.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH125631