Using BESR (eval) between frame sites.

[Mike_Amidei_2]

Hello,

I'm in the process of evaluating BESR 7 in my environment. We were hoping to use it as a DR solution in the following scenario: Our main site has about 10 servers (total data ~ 185 gb compressed). We have a remote site with 1 server and a NAS device which we were hoping to use for storage of the images. The two sites are currently connected via Frame-Relay at 768 kbps (which we can double to a full T1).

In theory we would have all our our "main site" servers and the remote site server backup to the NAS at the remote site. If there was a disaster at the main site the remote site is only about 4 hours away and could be used to restore the downed servers.

My question is mainly regarding the backup of data over the frame. 185 GB's is a lot of data to push over a T1 frame in a reasonable amount of time (along with the regular traffic it carries). First, are there alternatives to creating the "base" back up over the frame? For instance, backing up locally to tape then restoring the tape backup image at the remote site? Second, would it even be possible to get the original backups over the frame? Third, once the "base" backup is located at the remote site, will the T1 frame be sufficient to capture the "snapshots" throughout the day (assuming a moderate to low usage of the servers)?

Thanks for any assistance you can offer...and please let me know if there is any additional information that would help clarify the question.

[Bill_Felt]

Hello,

Before I go any further, I need to say that this is a great question (one we have heard before) but one that we have not yet implemented a specific feature for up to this point.

Having said that, there are some things you can try that may work, but right now are officially unsupported.

Just to make sure I understand, you are asking if it's possible to create the initial base backup of a volume to a local location, then take or transport the base backup files to a remote site, then have the backup job store subsequent incremental backups to the remote location, correct?

It's important to note that incremental backups can only be stored to the location that contains the base backup, as the files are linked.  In other words, you cannot store the base backup file locally and store incrementals to a different location.  So for something like this to work, the base backup has to be created locally, then transported to the remote location to which you desire incremental backups to be stored.  Once the base backup file is at the remote location, incremental backups (in theory) should happily be created at the new destination.

Here are the unsupported steps that would be required for something like this to work:

*** UNSUPPORTED ***

Create an incremental backup job.

Create the base backup for the incremental chain.

Stop the Backup Exec System Recovery (BESR) service  and copy the base backup .v2i file and corresponding .sv2i file to the new location.

Edit the backup job file (.pqj) that corresponds to the backup job created in step 1.

1. Open the “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Symantec\Backup Exec System Recovery\Schedule” folder
2. Right-click the appropriate .pqj file
3. Open the file with a text editor such as Notepad or Wordpad
4. Search the job file for the original backup location of the backup job
5. Replace the path of the original backup location with the path to the new location used in step 5.
6. Save and close the file

Edit the history file (.pqh) that corresponds to the disk volume being backed up in the backup job created in step 1.

1. Open the “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Symantec\Backup Exec System Recovery\History” folder
2. Right-click the appropriate .pqh file
3. Open the file with a text editor such as Notepad or WordPad
4. Search the job file for the original backup location of the backup job
5. Replace the path of the original backup location with the path to the new location used in step 5.
6. Save and close the file

Restart the Backup Exec System Recovery service

The next time the backup is run an incremental backup should be stored to the new location.  

Note: If the new location to which the backup job will be moved is a network share, the backup job must be originally created to a network share as well.  This allows for network credentials to be supplied at the time the backup job is created.  These credentials must have access (or be given access) to the new network location to which the backup job will be moved.

Network credentials are encrypted when they are included in a backup job.

One potential risk for doing something like this is if the system being backed up ever encounters a "dirty" shutdown situation.  Whenever a system being protected by Backup Exec System Recovery shuts down unexpectedly (power outage, blue screen, etc), our mechanism that tracks volume changes is left in a dirty state as well, requiring us to "reconcile" the current volume state to the last incremental in the chain.  Reconciling that much data over the pipe you describe would be almost as prohibitive as creating the initial base backup file directly to the remote destination in the first place.

Thanks.

Message Edited by Bill Felt on 08-22-200703:27 PM

Message Edited by Bill Felt on 08-22-200703:29 PM