Dear list, I have a nice backupserver running with bacula, tls and pki encryption and everything set up, which works great! But....!
I'm struggling with this question for quite a few weeks now, without being able to find a solution that feels "right". I want to achieve a 3 Level Off-Site Backup. Let me put down a little example for you, so you can see, what exactly I want. Let's say I have Client1, which is backed up to file by ServerA. Both boxes, even if in different fire safety areas, stand in one datacenter. Let's assume I want to be protected against a disaster, in which the whole datacenter gets destroyed. So I want to copy the Backup of Client1 to ServerB, wich is located in another datacenter in that city. But I don't want to pull 2 separate backups, so I want to use the daytime, to copy the original Backup from ServerA to ServerB. To complicate things a little more, I want to protect myself against a disaster, which would destroy the whole city, or even the whole country, so I want to copy the backup of Client1 from ServerA to ServerC, which is located in another country. This is pretty much negligible, since it will pretty much work the same way my first copy does. Now my question is, how would you accomplish this? I came up with a few ideas, but none satisfies me completely. 1.) Copy the File-Tapes from ServerA to ServerB, dump the catalog (mysql database), and safe that dump. This way I could always restore the director of ServerA with the files on ServerB. Eventually my Backup is safe, but it is complicated to restore. Plus I don't feel comfortable to encapsulate the File-Tapes. Would that become a problem? As far as I see it, I wouldn't be able to restore client-based. I'd have to restore a whole tape, and this way, restore all clients backup on ServerA. Not great, but hey, If my whole live-datacenter gets destroyed, this sounds like a reasonable kind of work. I see another option, which would be to just copy the files via nfs or iSCSI, or something, which I actually would prefer, because it would work without encapsulation. I'd end up with a "dumb" backup, with which I would be able to restore my original director by hand. Remarks? What do you think? Did I miss something? It doesn't sound great to me, but would work, as far as my (limited) knowledge goes. 2.) Backup using a second director, so "split" the backup. Each of the above mentioned backup servers is going to be a full bacula install anyway (because it will act as the backupserver for the site it is located at), so I could use it. I could, let's say, do a weekly full backup directly to the other server. This way it wouldn't be any kind of "hand work", but I'd split up my backup, and double my configuration (actually it would be times three, for 3 servers), because all servers need the client configuration, and all client's need to know the 3 servers. 3.) Clone the backup servers This is an option I pretty much dismissed already. While it would make sure that I have a fully working backup system,it conflicts with the idea of each backupserver being master for it's site, and only copying *some* but not *all* client's backup. A slightly modified version of this would be to use 3 directors and storage demons on each box, having a clone of each dir and sd on each machine. Still not very much appealing. I'm not sure, if I have to be able to restore easily from all servers but the original box. I mean, the backup is really just for bad bad baaaaad situations, not for everyday use. But if there is an option that would include an easy restore, hey, you have my attention! So, bottom line is - I can't figure out how I can manage this, I need some ideas, so please, dear list, fill my brain with ideas that will give me a murder headache for a bunch of days! Thank you gents, and ladies, of course! Best Regards, Philipp ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
