Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options
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@jmoore said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@jmoore said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
For those wondering why email doesn't cut it.... literally had an unrelated situation where they were using Veeam with email alerts and it didn't alert and no one knew it wasn't backing up for four months! The customer presumably knew that they had removed the backup target and not replaced it or communicated with anyone. But nonetheless, had there been the central console for this local backup job, we would have known instantly.
Reminds me of a couple weeks ago when we had an emergency alert go out on campus. I know this is fairly unrelated but but it does describe a flaw with email. I did not get an email giving me the notice because we were also having email issues at the time. So i walked out of a classroom at 4:00 in the afternoon and there was no staff left on campus but me. So yeah, have to have something else working besides email.
Yeah, the problem with any email based system is you don't know when you don't receive something. Email alerting is based on the "tell me when something is wrong" concept, which is fine to do. But alone is rarely enough. We need a "tell me that everything is okay, all the time" approach. We need to have constant verification that nothing has failed.
Do you have the staff to just develop what you need?
It's a consideration, for sure.
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@scottalanmiller
I know it is not exactly what you want, but Comet Backup Enterprise comes with a central console that can be hosted in a VPS and both local and cloud backups. You may just ignore the cloud backup and use it to backup to local USB/NAS/whatever: a local repository can be configured per client location or endpoint. Take a look:
https://cometbackup.com/comet_enterprise -
@dave_c said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@scottalanmiller
I know it is not exactly what you want, but Comet Backup Enterprise comes with a central console that can be hosted in a VPS and both local and cloud backups. You may just ignore the cloud backup and use it to backup to local USB/NAS/whatever: a local repository can be configured per client location or endpoint. Take a look:
https://cometbackup.com/comet_enterpriseWhich part of it isn't exactly what we are looking for? LOL
Well, no image support I guess?
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@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@Obsolesce said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
Yeah, that's why you can't rely on the backup software client by itself. You need another piece to handle the "nothing happening" part.
Right. Something not on the server or at the customer site because it is often server, software, or network failure causing the issue.
Which is where serverless shines in Azure/AWS/GCP
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@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
Which part of it isn't exactly what we are looking for? LOL
Well, it does cloud
Take a look at it, it does work. We use it for those cases when a Veeam VB&R is not an optionEdit:
I forgot: reporting is not very good. I mean, the console is multi tenant and shows both success and failures but I would like better reports. It comes with an API so eventually we will build whatever we need. -
@dave_c said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
Which part of it isn't exactly what we are looking for? LOL
Well, it does cloud
Take a look at it, it does work. We use it for those cases when a Veeam VB&R is not an optionEdit:
I forgot: reporting is not very good. I mean, the console is multi tenant and shows both success and failures but I would like better reports. It comes with an API so eventually we will build whatever we need.In addition to success and failure, does it show not reporting?
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@JaredBusch
What I miss is a report that I can send to the customer every week/month.
I cannot show you a lot, just but here are some partial views:
partial Comet console -
@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@jmoore said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
For those wondering why email doesn't cut it.... literally had an unrelated situation where they were using Veeam with email alerts and it didn't alert and no one knew it wasn't backing up for four months! The customer presumably knew that they had removed the backup target and not replaced it or communicated with anyone. But nonetheless, had there been the central console for this local backup job, we would have known instantly.
Reminds me of a couple weeks ago when we had an emergency alert go out on campus. I know this is fairly unrelated but but it does describe a flaw with email. I did not get an email giving me the notice because we were also having email issues at the time. So i walked out of a classroom at 4:00 in the afternoon and there was no staff left on campus but me. So yeah, have to have something else working besides email.
Yeah, the problem with any email based system is you don't know when you don't receive something. Email alerting is based on the "tell me when something is wrong" concept, which is fine to do. But alone is rarely enough. We need a "tell me that everything is okay, all the time" approach. We need to have constant verification that nothing has failed.
That's why I said Prometheus. It should be fairly easy to create an exporter to monitor this.
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Or there may be one already for your backup utility. Heres one for Borg written in Bash.
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@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@jmoore said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
For those wondering why email doesn't cut it.... literally had an unrelated situation where they were using Veeam with email alerts and it didn't alert and no one knew it wasn't backing up for four months! The customer presumably knew that they had removed the backup target and not replaced it or communicated with anyone. But nonetheless, had there been the central console for this local backup job, we would have known instantly.
Reminds me of a couple weeks ago when we had an emergency alert go out on campus. I know this is fairly unrelated but but it does describe a flaw with email. I did not get an email giving me the notice because we were also having email issues at the time. So i walked out of a classroom at 4:00 in the afternoon and there was no staff left on campus but me. So yeah, have to have something else working besides email.
Yeah, the problem with any email based system is you don't know when you don't receive something. Email alerting is based on the "tell me when something is wrong" concept, which is fine to do. But alone is rarely enough. We need a "tell me that everything is okay, all the time" approach. We need to have constant verification that nothing has failed.
This is why I never understood how you considered Email to the emergency way to get ahold of you - and calling you wasn't - calling was some how less than emailing you.
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@Dashrender said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
This is why I never understood how you considered Email to the emergency way to get ahold of you - and calling you wasn't - calling was some how less than emailing you.
Calling is way less than emailing. And you KNOW when you've sent an email.
Calling will not get 70% of the time, email will not get me .007% of the time. So if the goal is to reach me, which make sense. One is all but guaranteed to get me, one is extremely likely to not get me.
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@Dashrender as an example. Every day I talk to our team about how you "never do a phone call without an email to put the details in writing" because a phone call is never good enough - if it's not important enough to write in an email, you should can't justify wasting someone's time on the phone. But we never talk about how you should call to verify that they understand an email.
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@stacksofplates said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@jmoore said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
For those wondering why email doesn't cut it.... literally had an unrelated situation where they were using Veeam with email alerts and it didn't alert and no one knew it wasn't backing up for four months! The customer presumably knew that they had removed the backup target and not replaced it or communicated with anyone. But nonetheless, had there been the central console for this local backup job, we would have known instantly.
Reminds me of a couple weeks ago when we had an emergency alert go out on campus. I know this is fairly unrelated but but it does describe a flaw with email. I did not get an email giving me the notice because we were also having email issues at the time. So i walked out of a classroom at 4:00 in the afternoon and there was no staff left on campus but me. So yeah, have to have something else working besides email.
Yeah, the problem with any email based system is you don't know when you don't receive something. Email alerting is based on the "tell me when something is wrong" concept, which is fine to do. But alone is rarely enough. We need a "tell me that everything is okay, all the time" approach. We need to have constant verification that nothing has failed.
That's why I said Prometheus. It should be fairly easy to create an exporter to monitor this.
Prometheus works with Comet
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@dave_c webinar with them tomorrow. Thanks for the tip, most promising product thus far.
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@scottalanmiller
Nice, let us know how it goes.
