Hello,
On 3/12/2006 12:32 PM, Harold Robinson wrote:
Hello everyone.
I have been reading a lot about Bacula, I have read sections of the
manual several times just to get a good idea of what I am about to
propose. I am new to Bacula but I do have a test system up and running
in my lab right now.
I have a client that has once again outgrown their current DAT tape
drive. It seems the perpetual problem, or as I have herd it called
several times Moore ’s Law … that is the more storage you provide the
more you have to back up.
Here is the current environment:
1. Linux server running Redhat 8.0 which acts as the file server, Its
current maximum storage is 80 GB on a RAID 5. It was recently
decommissioned as the mail server. It still servers as the clients main
and only file server. It will be upgraded with in the next couple of
months to CentOS to bring its operating system current and to
repartition the disk to remove the old mail stores.
2. Linux Server running Fedora Core 4. This runs the new mail server
called Scalix. It has been in service for about 2 months now, with very
little problem to report.
3. Novell 3.12 file server running a VERY OLD and archaic custom DOS
accounting application.
4. Sony SDT10000/11000 mounted in the file server.
Currently the estimated amount of data I would need to backup is
30G of File Data
20G of Mail data (on the Scalix Server)
10G of Home Data
So I have a minimum of 60GB of data to be backed up during a full backup.
I don’t want to buy a new backup tape drive, they just bought this a
little over a year ago, and at the time I bought this one, It should
have lasted them for quite a while. Well the office grew a bit and what
do you know, the backups now exceed one tape.
What I want to accomplish is to build a reliable backup system that will
backup the data to the hard disk first, then to tape. I want to use the
existing Tape hardware, but purchase a backup hard drive used to store
Bacula’s disk volumes. During backup to tape I would like the system to
prompt for new tapes as they get filled during normal working hours.
The Old accounting application is currently backed up on a weekly basis
to a Laptop by the accountant. I have setup scripts that are linked to
a button on the desktop. The accountant simply double clicks on the
button, and the backup begins. Basically the script copys all the files
from the Novell server to the Laptop, the resulting copy, is then used
as a read only copy for when the accountant is telecommuting.
I have compiled and setup a test Bacula Server and its running
flawlessly on CentOS-4.
Known facts:
Migration is a feature that the staff is working on. This is a
feature that would ultimately solve my problem, but it’s not available
right now.
I have the capability to backup to disk volumes.
I have the capability to backup the disk volumes to tape.
Backup Plan:
In order to accomplish my goal, my thought would be to setup as many
disk volumes as there were tape volumes and create separate pools for each.
Stage One: In the middle of the night Bacula would suck the data from
the File server and Mail server, and store them in the disk volumes.
Stage Two: In the morning Bacula would then backup the previous night’s
disk volumes to tape. As each physical tape was filled, the staff could
eject the filled tape and insert a blank tape and continue that process
until stage two was complete. After the backup was complete, the owner
of the company could take the resulting tapes off site for better data
security.
Schedules and types of backup:
Every Friday evening, I will perform a FULL backup of the system.
This will be backed up to disk volumes.
Every Monday Morning Perform a backup of the disk volumes created
on Friday, Taking an estimated 4 tapes.
Every Monday through Thursday Evening performing an incremental
backup of any changed data to Disk Volumes
Every Friday Morning Backing up the finished Incremental Disk
Volumes to tape, Taking an estimated 2 tapes.
All 6 tapes will be taken off site for safe storage.
This process will be repeated on week 2. At the end of week two, “if
you can get the owner to remember”, the old tapes are brought on site
and week two is sent off site. The tapes will be rotated 6 tapes on
site and 6 tapes off site.
Restores should always occur from the server, not from the tape drive.
If I need to restore from tape drive, it’s because the backup server has
crashed, and it needs to be rebuilt.
Questions:
Any comments on the above backup plan would be greatly
appreciated. I know that all of this is contingent on the owner
remembering to bring back the old tapes. I am fairly confident I can
“Train” the owner to do this. I have been their system administrator
since 1998 and I have all the confidence in the world that I can get him
to do this. The other part is training Staff to change tapes promptly.
I also am confident I can train the staff to push a button to eject the
tape and insert the proper one. Can I make this plan better or easier
to manage?
Given your limitations and needs, and considering that you can get the
people at your customer to handle the extra tasks of tape management, I
see nothing obvious missing.
Can I have Bacula e-mail staff when it needs a tape change? The
particular staff member I have in mind is busy on other projects, but
does regularly check e-mail.
You simply set up Bacula to use is mail address as (one) adminiustrator
contact.
What happens when the Backup Server crashes? Could I get the backup
server up and running to the state it was before it crashed, or some
where close to it?.
Yes. You do need a complete set of backups, obviously, and you should
have a prepared disaster recovery plan for this. The most important
thing, IMO, is to know what you need to do, i.e. have a working rescue
CD with Bacula on it, and know how to populate the catalog with data
from the tapes or from the latest catalog backup. And I suppose you know
that with such a setup the time needed for a disaster recovery can be
longer than what you'd get with a one-stage backup.
My concern is if there was a natural disaster like
an Earthquake or Fire. If the file servers were damaged in such an
event and needed to be replaced, could I get the company back on its
feet fairly quickly using the backup procedures I have outlined in this
posting.
Depending on what you mean by "fairly quickly" - Yes.
How big should I make each disk volume if I am backing up each disk
volume to a Sony SDT10000/11000 (it’s a 20/40 DDS4 DAT backup)
I see two possible answers to this question.
Idea one: Make the disk volumes just so big they fill a tape, i.e. 20GB
per volume file, so you can have a simple one-to-one mapping of disk
volumes to tape volumes.
Or just limit the disk volumes to whatever can be well handled by you
and Bacula - personally, I'd set up 4 or 8 GB - and let Bacula handle
the mapping to tapes. This can make restores longer since it's possible
that Bacula has to fast forward over almost complete tapes, but it makes
the initial setup much easier because you don't have to manage a one
file onto one volume mapping.
What about file systems. Some file systems will only allow 17GB files,
(found this problem in the list). What file system would best suite
large files, and would allow file sizes larger than 17GB?
I don't know anything about a 17GB limit, and with current OSes the file
size isn't limited where it matters. More important, really large volume
files are handled rather slow by Bacula.
Thank you very much for all your help.
Arno
Sincerely,
Harold Robinson
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Arno Lehmann http://www.its-lehmann.de
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