Off Site configuration question

[NoelT]

Hi, new member here.  I have had a look, but can't find what I'm looking for, so apologies if this has been asked already.

I'm trying to set the off site ftp up.  My question is, as we're having bandwidth issues, can I copy the v2i files to an external USB drive and then onto my backup server?

Basically, the v2i files are never finishing in time, so if I actually create the files on the ftp destination, will BESR just copy the update files, or does it insist that it creates all the files and will overwrite existing files?

I hope that makes sense??

Thanks in Advance...

[Haddock]

Hi there sorry to jumpin here cause i dont have the answer but would like to here it.

I would like to go to my customer take the first backup to my disk and then go back to my hosting center and place it there and configure the offsite backup. is that possible or do i NEED a device at the customer site all the time ?

[TerryHog]

Hi. That's what I came here to ask also. I'm just starting to get some results with my BESR  testing , and one of the hardest things has been getting the initial image off-site without sending 100's Gbs over a DSL line . It should be a basic requirement, but it's not properly addressed by the software , or at least it is not explained properly in the manual. The manual just assumes that offsite means a second backup that you do on-site that you then take off site but dont actually use off-site, or a backup that is entirely done over the internet/LAN. There needs to be a middle option... yes?

Fear not.. there is a way. If anyone knows a better way then let us know...

(I've been using UNCs rather than FTP for the offsite  )

First I tried to set up an 'offsite' to local storage/NAS , ran the initial backup, and then physically moved the NAS device with the 100Gb's on it back to my real offsite location. Then I changed the offsite location in the Backup job to be the UNC of the remote office, ran the backup, and yes ...it began to overwrite the whole offsite image instead of just appending the last incremental.. aargh!

It seems that as soon as you change the offsite UNC or FTP path in the backup job , BESR needs to run the whole backup again for what it thinks is a 'new' offsite path. I suspect there is something in the local <server.sv2i> text file that could be related to this  ?

So I then made sure the backup job's offsite location path was unchanged between the offsite being created local and then it being really offsite...

Let's say at my offsite location the NAS is going to be \\192.168.20.20\IMAGES  , I take this NAS to the server, which is on 172.27.1.5 say , give the server an additional IP in the 192.168... range , set up the offsite backup to go to  \\192.168.20.20\images . I have a VPN between the local and offsite but for the intial backup I disable that , forcing everything to be local.

Once the first backup is complete, I make sure no further backups occur (turn off scheduling) while I carry the NAS back to offsite (it seems that if an incremental occurs on the server while the offsite is unavailable that causes problems too). Plug the NAS in offfsite, remove the second IP from the server, re-enable the VPN, then resume incremental backups..

The key seems to be to not change the offsite URL/UNC in the backup job.

It works  but I feel I have been lucky and that the software is not really meant to do this . If so , then it should be able to do this and in a much more straightforward way.

Who knows a better way..?

By the way, if moving the offsite storage device to the local site is not an option (e.g you are backing up lots of servers to a big NAS device/server) then I would guess that copying the full image from the local store to the offsite NAS on a portable USB disk or whatever would work , but I think you would still have to fool BESR into thinking it had really done an offsite copy somehow.. I dont know...

Terry

[TerryHog]

Just picking up on a point that Haddock made... I think you would always want  a copy of the backup at the customer local  site, as well as an additional copy at your hosting center, wouldn't you ? Otherwise, if they need to restore a file in a hurry and the link is down....

?

[Haddock]

Yes TerryHog my mistake in explaining ofcourse I will have a local primary Storage for the backup, FTP is only if the building is robbed or fire or such like.

I also did some testing and found out same thing as you, If I change offsite it will try make it all over again.... didnt make a test like you did with "cheating" the software to think nothing changed but glad you posted the result.

This must be possible hope some symantec employee jumps in, these forums seems a bit left to themselves.

Let me know if you find out, I'll do the same.

rgds,

Lars

[sbarningham]

Hi Guys

I don't know if you'll find it easier to use a name for the off site storage device.

Then using DNS or editing the hosts file etc you can assign the 'name' to an ip address, first off the onsite address then once moved to the off site address. Seems to work out ok here.

Have a good day.

[Haddock]

Thx Sbarningham,

but I still find it "not so nice" to trick the software like that since we cannot be sure if any service packs or updates of the software will change that possibility.

Im in contact with Symantec about this right now and awaiting an answer.

thx

Lars 

[sbarningham]

Hi Lars
Yes I guess you're right there! There should be no excuse with the logs and the .v2i info, it should be always correct.
I'll keep an eye out to see if you get a resolution.
Regards
Steve

[Haddock]

Hey guys and girls!

Got it sorted with help from symantec pretty stupid I didnt try that my self.

1.First you setup the backup job to a local folder or network share and run the backup. (no offsite config)

2.Then you take all the image files (v2i etc.) from that location and copy it to a removable disk.

3. Take your bike and drive to your offsite FTP location, copy all the files to your FTP site.

4. Go back to BESR and configure the backup job to use offsite ftp to your ftp location and it will start sync the folders when the job runs.

Pretty easy and no hokus pokus.

Lars

Message Edited by Haddock on 06-12-2008 02:08 AM

[sbarningham]

Hi Lars
Sounds good but just tried it out, locally of course to skip the bike ride, so thought I'd share what I did.

Made backups to the onsite storage device, set up off site ftp storage device locally, manually copied over all the backups then setup off-site copy. Symantec then happily overwrote all the backups again! Have I missed something?
Regards
Steve

[Haddock]

Aaargh!!

When I saw your post I wanted to test again, deleted my settings and made it all over again.... now I get the same result when I configure offsite and run it BESR thinks its a new location and starts to sync it all over again..

What the f****

must be someone who knows!

Lars

[David_F]

It could be that modifications to the backup job will force a new baseline image, which then would be sent to the storage location. Since the files are already there from the previous backups those will not be copied (or shouldn't be) but still the first large *.V2i file is being made and still copied to the remote FTP location taking up a lot of bandwidth.

It is because of this 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.

[Haddock]

ok...

You could also consider to use True Image Echo Server for Windows from Acronis which does the trick.

http://eu.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATISWin/

[David_F]

This is an interesting issue on how to seed a backup and take it offsite and have it continue with incremental updates. Those interested please forward your interest into this so that I can present the material to product managment.

[NoelT]

I for one would be very interested in this functionality.  seems a bit pointless to have off-site without it to be honest.

[Haddock]

Would be nice with Symantec since pricing is lower than Acronis and easier to order (for us) also functionality with exchange is nice and Acronis do not have that yet.

Idea is to take a full backup and move it to external location and then continue the backup to there, and maybe redo the full backup every month or more.

 Does anyone have any reasons why this should not be done ?

Appreciate you time 

[Jacob_A]

If you are interested in this feature please continue to add your feedback to this thread so it can be forwarded on.

[Kiddbios]

This feature is an absolute must. Our Dell rep sold us on a bunch of these licenses for our clients, but now we can't actually use it because the initial backup is far too large. Let's put this in perspective: If you uploaded and average of 1mb of data every second for an entire month it would be a little over 300GB. That would backup 1 average small businesses server, but would completely saturate most small businesses upload bandwidth for an entire month... just to create the initial backup. I cannot believe this feature has been overlooked. There needs to be an option to create an initial backup to a NAS or USB device and then carry it to an offsite location, copy it to another storage device and then have only incremental backups pushed over the wire.

Also, there needs to be an ability to create a full backup set from an original full and X-amount of incrementals. For instance, let's say I have my initial full backup and a months worth of incrementals. I want the ability to take all of that months incrementals and combine them into one master backup, then be able to delete the old incrementals and make new incrementals off of the new master backup. That way I would never have to take the NAS/USB back to the customers site to "re-seed" my master backup.

As it stands, this product is much like having to hack together community supported open-source software, but having to pay to do it. 

[David_F]

Has anyone on this thread tried with success doing the first full back up to a share on a system via a UNC path using DNS resolution then take the system physically offsite and have it connected via a VPN back to the LAN to allow agent’s to continue making incremental updates?

[Kiddbios]

What if you just used a 3rd party utility to copy the incrementals? Doesn't seem like it would be that hard.