Backup and Recovery Goals
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Also, what a new R720xd for your backup server? I'd go with a gen or two old machine for that. It doesn't need processing power. Does it really need 16 GB of RAM?
Correct me if I'm wrong, the backup server is nothing more than a SAMSD. Pure simple storage. If you could buy a NAS for less, it would be worth it, but at this size you probably can't, so getting a several generation old server with enough storage should be fine.
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@Dashrender What server are you thinking? I was considering the R510 to save on the upfront cost.
16 GB of RAM was the minimum.
Any recommendation otherwise?
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@DustinB3403 said:
@Dashrender What server are you thinking? I was considering the R510 to save on the upfront cost.
16 GB of RAM was the minimum.
Any recommendation otherwise?
I know nothing about Dell servers - Frankly I'll call Xbyte and find the cheapest server that has enough storage slots for you. You don't need processing power, so the cheaper the better, as long as it's still an enterprise class machine. Next is the question of warranty, do you need/want it on the backup server? Considering you're buying an older machine I don't know what options you'll have.
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I want warranty on everything we're buying. Since we're planning on using the servers for the next several years I certainly don't want it to go down in a year and have to buy another server because we opted out of the warranty.
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I still question the need for two production servers. You have a 1 day RTO, doubling the cost of your production servers seems like an over spend to me. The only gain you get is if you have a server failure. But you have the additional cooling/heating costs, power costs, possible 10 GigE ports costs, etc.
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@DustinB3403 said:
I want warranty on everything we're buying. Since we're planning on using the servers for the next several years I certainly don't want it to go down in a year and have to buy another server because we opted out of the warranty.
OH I wouldn't opt out for sure, just didn't know if the older servers would even offer one?
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xByte Offers it directly from everything that I've seen on their site.
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yeah, xbyte is spectacular. talk with @BradfromxByte that's my dude right there
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I wonder if it's possible to backup directly yo tape from XenServer. . .
Has anyone done this before?
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@DustinB3403 said:
I wonder if it's possible to backup directly yo tape from XenServer. . .
Has anyone done this before?
Have not tried it. By "directly", do you mean just dumping a tar to tape? Can be done. Or do you want to do it with StorageCraft or Unitrends?
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@DustinB3403 said:
xByte Offers it directly from everything that I've seen on their site.
Yes they do.
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@scottalanmiller I was thinking live from the systems at backup time. Direct to the tape, bypassing onsite storage. (completely dumping it) and just go straight to tape.
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@DustinB3403 said:
I want warranty on everything we're buying. Since we're planning on using the servers for the next several years I certainly don't want it to go down in a year and have to buy another server because we opted out of the warranty.
Although that might make more business sense. Run the numbers.
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@DustinB3403 said:
@scottalanmiller I was thinking live from the systems at backup time. Direct to the tape, bypassing onsite storage. (completely dumping it) and just go straight to tape.
That will destroy your tapes. "All" backup to tape has to be staged first.
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@Dashrender said:
I still question the need for two production servers. You have a 1 day RTO, doubling the cost of your production servers seems like an over spend to me. The only gain you get is if you have a server failure. But you have the additional cooling/heating costs, power costs, possible 10 GigE ports costs, etc.
This is a very important consideration. Going to dual servers is a big expense.
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So it has to go to a local storage first, then to tape.
Kind of what I was reading, just putting thoughts out there.
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@DustinB3403 said:
So it has to go to a local storage first, then to tape.
Kind of what I was reading, just putting thoughts out there.
But if that's the case, you only need enough storage to stage the data, 8 or so TB, not the full 24 GB you've been looking at.
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@Dashrender said:
I still question the need for two production servers. You have a 1 day RTO, doubling the cost of your production servers seems like an over spend to me. The only gain you get is if you have a server failure. But you have the additional cooling/heating costs, power costs, possible 10 GigE ports costs, etc.
@scottalanmiller said:
This is a very important consideration. Going to dual servers is a big expense.
Yeah I've tried explaining that as well. Because hosting the second server off-site really doesn't appear to be an option from the conversations I've had so far. Having two only provide protection in the aforementioned scenario.
A power outage would still result in an outage. And its more to try and protect.
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@DustinB3403 said:
Yeah I've tried explaining that as well. Because hosting the second server off-site really doesn't appear to be an option from the conversations I've had so far.
Is that still the case? If you use incremental replication, can you do it? Have you discovered your daily deltas yet?
Maybe StorageCraft can tell you what your deltas are? If your deltas are only a few gigs, you could go for nightly replication assuming you have that 30 Mb pipe you mentioned before.
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but if you're a 1 site location and power goes out..... power is out. get a generator? regardless of server location, unless you use RDS or have an alt location, you'd be down down down until power comes up.
