Everything about 'offsite' is flawed !

[TerryHog]

1) Symantec seem to assume that we can all easily transfer our initial server image over the WAN . Hence the lack of a special 'prepare image for offsite copy/move via disk/tape' procedure and the fact that the software begins overwriting the offsite base recovery point at the slightest provocation.

2) There seems to be no way to consolidate/remove recovery points from the offsite location in the same way that you can on the local copy. ?  Result: you end up with a different set of recovery points offsite compared to those onsite. And because of 1) this is more of a problem because we don't have the bandwidth to frequently start a new base/full recovery point.

3) The manual says that if/when the offsite location runs out of disk space ( which is more of a possibility because of 1) and 2)  )   , BESR will automatically remove the oldest recovery points from the offsite in order to make space for the new ones. Not so... I just tested this and the offsite copy just failed with:

Error EC8F1FA5: There is not enough space to create the offsite copy on besr_offsite.
Details: There is insufficient disk space to complete operation.

We're now thinking to look into using BESR just for the 'imaging/restore anywhere' side of things , and something like DoubleTake for properly replicating the backups offsite. Or maybe even Doubletake with Server Recovery Option as a completel alternative to BESR . Anyone tried either of those things ??

Terry

[Louie_Meletlidi]

Yes Terry

both worked great.

kool thing is, real time replication...wonder if BE will look into similar ?

[David_F]

Terry, The Offsite copy option utilized the history files on an agent as part of it retention schedule. When the job kicks over a remove task of recovery point images from the primary storage location, it will truncate the history logs of those files so after the next successful backup and offsite copy, the command to remove (if permitted by permissions at the offsite copy location) will delete the files like it did at the primary storage location keeping both locations in synch. As for WAN connections interest is being taken into the possibility of ‘Seeding’ an Offsite copy to say a NAS when locally connected and then continue having incremental updates offsite copied when the NAS is located through a WAN connection so to not use up so much bandwidth. Customers interested in the feature should use the HELP | Send Feedback option expressing this and other enhancements they wish to see with the product. Secondly they can join the Symbeta team https://symbeta.symantec.com to offer suggestions as the product is being developed.