We have just lauched a micro-site with details of our LiveBackup backup and business continuity system.
If you are still using tape or disk based backup then you need to look at this. The LiveBackup system acts as an onsite backup library, backup virtual server as well as a staging platform for internet based off site or USB disk syncd backups.
It is as bullet proof a backup system we’ve seen for SMBs.
Have a look at www.shadowfaxlivebackup.com for more info.
(p.s. I just managed to overwrite a file I was working on. No problem, our LiveBackup had a copy from 15 minutes ago that I could recover.)
I had an opportunity at the weekend to test our disaster recovery plan. Our Exchange Server had crashed, I had to get some important information from it (the location of a birthday party my son was going to), and I had two options: go to the office and fix the Exchange server, or as we have a Live Backup BDR I could remotely configure a Virtual Server on there and restore our Exchange server to it – as a temporary measure, and extract the info I needed that way. Sledgehammer to crack a nut, but the technology is there so why not use it?
But I hit a snag. Embarrasingly the recovery password for our Live Backup was stored on our help desk server, and that was unavailable because of the other server crashing. That meant I did not have the recovery key, which meant I couldn’t recover the server. I could have extracted it from the help desk server if the disaster was for real, but it would have been a time consuming task. And had the whole office burnt down, then there was no way I could have got it back.
Of course now I have that password saved securely away from the office. But it brought home to me the importance of the disaster recovery plan. And the importance of keeping that plan off-site and making sure the correct information is in it, and the correct people can get it.
(I drove to the office and rebooted the server, it came straight back up and George got to his party in time.)
One of the reasons we love our Live Backup BDR (Backup and Disaster Recovery) service is that we know that our clients data is off site.
We got called to a company yesterday. Their office had been burnt to the ground by an electrical fire.
Their backups were in a fire proof safe in the office. Fire proof safes aren’t as fireproof as you might think. All their data was burnt to a crisp.
We set them up with a loan PC and a router with a 3G connection to get them back on-line (all the phone lines had been burnt out), which is something. But they have lost all of their data. They seem a resilient enough lot that I hope they will survive, and fortunately no-one was hurt in the fire, but it is going to be a stressful time for them to get back up to speed.
If you are still backing up with tape or disk, are they going off-site? Is the member of staff in charge doing it?
Time to check!
I write this as I try to restore the server of a client who didn’t heed the warning. Despite having a meeting about backups a few months ago, no action was taken at the time, and now their server is down. In a way they are lucky, they will not lose any data from this, but they have lost a day (and counting, not fixed it yet!) of work in the office, and I don’t know how much that has cost them.
Fortunately we did find a backup – but it was about 6 months old. This should be enough to restore their server, but if there was a current backup the server could have been restored in about half an hour, done remotely and been covered by their support contract.