Server Management: Linux Backups

Linux Server Management Best Practices:
Backup & Recovery Solutions
Jeff Huckaby
rackAID
www.rackaid.com

rackAID: Quick Facts
300+ management clients
200 servers in backup farms
Backup operations in 4 cities
Started with R1Soft in 2007
>90% of clients use backups

Backup & Recovery Practices
Understanding Data Loss
Setting Disaster Recovery Goals
Backup & Recovery Questions
rackAID & R1Soft
Tips, Tricks and Traps
Questions?

Understanding Data Loss

Is this You?

Set Your Disaster Recovery Goals
Business needs drive your goals:
What can you afford to lose?
How long can you be down?
What is the cost of downtime?
Some Goals:
Fully restore a failed server in 24 hours.
Replace accidently deleted files in 30 minutes.
Restored hacked web site files in 1 hour.

Backups are Easy Recovery Is Hard
#FAIL

Backups & Recovery Questions
Backup Questions
What to backup?
When to backup?
Where to backup?
How often to backup?
How long to keep?
Legal requirements?
Recovery Questions
Do I have the assets?
Do I have the time?
Do I have the staff?
How do I test?
Remote tools?
How often to review?

rackAID’s Goals: Enter R1Soft
By Setting Goals You Set Expectations
Be able to recover failed server in under 24 hours.
Be able to recover files quickly (< 30 mins) and easily.
Centralized management and reporting.
Scalable solution – add storage or servers as needed
Extensible solutions – integrate into existing operations via API.
Commodity hardware – no special hardware to buy.
Clear flexible licensing – fits our MSP business model.
Good error reporting – make it easy for us to spot issues.
Pure Linux environment – must be Linux.

rackAID’s R1Soft Deployment
Locations: Dallas, DC, Seattle, NYC
Disks: >4 SATA Disks in RAID 5 or 10
CPU: Dual Core or Better
RAM: 4GB or more
Network: GigE Throughout

Backup Management Tools
Cacti
Nagios
Splunk>
Kayako Help Desk

Data and Server Recovery
Data Restores
Conflicting processes
Watch network loads
Watch disk capacity
Bare Metal Restores
KVM over IP
Rescue console
Kernel Rebuilds

Backup and Recovery Pitfalls
Corrupt File Systems
System may not boot
Too many files
Slow restores
Too slow a network
10Mbits = ~4 GB/hr
Too small a disk
No bare metal restore
Isolated backups
Delays recovery

Backup and Recovery Tips
Check file systems as needed.
Don’t backup what you don’t need.
Keep tabs on backup server capacity
Test, test and test again.
Backup errors signal hardware issues.
Disk safe verifications are important.
Maintain written recovery procedures.

Questions?
Contact Me:
Jeff Huckaby
jeff@rackaid.com
rackAID Services
www.rackaid.com
contact@rackaid.com

Server Management: Linux Backups

by rackAID Support on May 03, 2010

Accessibility

Categories

Tags

Upload Details

Usage Rights

1 Embed 4

Statistics

Server Management: Linux Backups — Presentation Transcript