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Data Backup Strategies . Thomas Lisle Guffin Technical Evangelist Higher Ground Technologies, Inc. Collierville, Tennessee. Scenario 1. A user deletes a spreadsheet that has critical data. The file must be restored within the next hour. How did you plan for this situation?
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Data Backup Strategies Thomas Lisle Guffin Technical Evangelist Higher Ground Technologies, Inc. Collierville, Tennessee (C) 2008 Higher Ground Technologies, Inc.
Scenario 1 • A user deletes a spreadsheet that has critical data. The file must be restored within the next hour. • How did you plan for this situation? • What are the steps to restore the file in the time requested? (C) 2008 Higher Ground Technologies, Inc.
Scenario 2 • The Sr. Pastor’s .pst file is corrupt. (your church uses an external POP/SMTP server and Outlook clients). Get his e-mail and contacts back or suffer the consequences. • How did you plan for this situation? • What “gotcha’s” might you encounter in restoring this file? (C) 2008 Higher Ground Technologies, Inc.
Scenario 3 • At 4:00 PM on a very busy (from a data entry standpoint) day, your Shelby/SQL/Data Server suffers an unexpected shutdown. The system reboots fine, but 30 minutes later, users start reporting missing data. Shelby support advises you to “restore last night’s backup”. • How long will it take you to have Shelby back on line? • How much data will need to be re-entered ? (C) 2008 Higher Ground Technologies, Inc.
Scenario 4 • A power spike causes a catastrophic failure of your Exchange Server. There are burn marks on the mother board. The RAID controller and at least two HDDs are dead. The server has been in service for four years and identical replacement parts are non-existent. • How long will it take you to have Exchange back on line? • How patient will your staff be when e-mail is not working? (C) 2008 Higher Ground Technologies, Inc.
Scenario 5 • A natural disaster completely destroys your church building. The servers are gone, the external USB HDDs are gone, the shelf with your backup tapes is gone, even your fire-proof safe is gone. • You are still breathing, your home PC is functional, your consultant from a distant city is still fully operational. • Time to implement your “Plan”. Tell me about it. (C) 2008 Higher Ground Technologies, Inc.
Topics • Why do you do backups? • Can any “single” backup strategy cover all possibilities? • Are there sufficient resources (time and $$) to have every possibility covered? • Is a data backup all you need? • Are some “risks” acceptable? • The “Disaster Recovery Plan” • Backup Devices (C) 2008 Higher Ground Technologies, Inc.
Why Do Backups? • People make mistakes • And expect you to “fix” them • Gremlins assail your data stores • Hardware fails • Microsoft makes applications and operating systems • And hot fixes & patches for same • Natural disasters occur (C) 2008 Higher Ground Technologies, Inc.
Can any “single” backup strategy cover all possibilities? • A plan for the “most likely” • What is the most likely scenario that would require the use of some type of backup? • A plan for the “worst case” • Disaster Recovery • A plan for every server • The shotgun theory (C) 2008 Higher Ground Technologies, Inc.
Are there sufficient resources (time and $$) to have every possibility covered? • What is your “backup budget”? • What is your archive device rotation plan • Can you get back to last week, last month, last year? • Islands of information • User data on laptop or workstation • Ministry / group data store • Much less expensive to provide on-line storage than archive storage (C) 2008 Higher Ground Technologies, Inc.
Are some “risks” acceptable? • How do you assess the risk? • Probability of loss occurring • Data or Hardware • How Critical - • Data or Service • Current-ness of restore • Allowable time to restore • Will your staff give you a week or two • Time to source new hardware (C) 2008 Higher Ground Technologies, Inc.
Is a data backup all you need? • How important is Active Directory? • System State • Shadow copy components • Does a RAID set eliminate the need for backups? • Majority of “Major” restores start w/ reload of OS • Significant %% of those are on new hardware • Hardware shelf spares, servers with under utilization • Off-site copies of all install s/w and license keys (C) 2008 Higher Ground Technologies, Inc.
The “Disaster Recovery Plan” • What data and services – at a minimum – would be required? • Shelby – some where to run it and some way to access it • E-mail – access to domain name servers to re-point MX • Web services – ability to make fast edits to communicate with staff, members, public • Voice communications – a quick way to bring up a distributed voice network (C) 2008 Higher Ground Technologies, Inc.
Backup Devices & Software • Why not storage servers, NAS, UDB HDD, etc. • What is the future with tapes? • Tape Library /Auto Loader • Software - ???? • On Line Backups - Hosted Shelby Servers (C) 2008 Higher Ground Technologies, Inc.
Thanks for AttendingWe Welcome: (C) 2008 Higher Ground Technologies, Inc.