[ale] Backup strategies

Jeff Lightner jlightner at water.com
Fri Sep 12 16:57:24 EDT 2008


I remember working a job where I had to campaign for several months just
to get a 2nd 1 GB SCSI drive in the server.   A year later I was working
at another place where we used Nike arrays that that had a minimum of 20
GB (RAID 5) and a year after that was working at that same place with
our second EMC Symmetrix and was approaching a TB.  Now I work in a
location where we have multiple 4 TB databases and we're thinking we
need to add space next year.

-----Original Message-----
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Pat
Regan
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 4:21 PM
To: ale at ale.org
Subject: Re: [ale] Backup strategies

Chris Fowler wrote:
>> If you're a smaller IT shop that might be a pretty big expense.
>> Especially if you have to do work to move tapes off-site every day.
>>   
> 
> This is something I live with and it hits a nerve.   I've dealt with 
> people "too cheap" to purchase a full replicated clone of their server

> for use when their's
> die.   During training I inform them that if their server dies then it

> can be 2-3 business days for use to replace their hardware, IF we have

> it in stock.  We don't stock much.  Normally I don't care but in this 
> case, they are selling their customers a service. 
> 

The thing to remember is who it is that is actually too cheap.  It
likely isn't the people within the IT department :).

I've worked in places where I've been able to spend money like it was
water.  I've worked in places where the money was very tight.  When the
money is tight you have to make trade offs.

If you're one guy with a limited budget you'll be thankful to have your
backups run and end up off-site on their own every day with no
intervention.

With today's prices you should be able to buy a pair of low end servers
with a terabyte or more of RAID 1 or 5 disk for about $1000.  That is
most likely enough space for something like rdiff-backup to keep a few
months worth of daily backups of 500GB on each server.

That could give you a local and off-site backup, assuming your company
has more than one location with connectivity of course :).

Pat
----------------------------------
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail may contain privileged or confidential information and is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s). If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the contents of this information is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this electronic transmission in error, please reply immediately to the sender that you have received the message in error, and delete it. Thank you.
----------------------------------



More information about the Ale mailing list