What about NAS Backups?

At one time, I felt that NAS had a rather distinct disadvantage. While it did significantly reduce system administration requirements, it created a challenge in one particular area - backup and recovery. Since most NAS filters usually involve a stripped-down version of the operating system, normal backup and recovery client software often isn't applicable. With a few exceptions, you can't simply buy client software from backup vendor for your filer. Although this has gotten better, there was a time when the only way to back up your NAS appliance was to use rump or to back it up via an NFS mount.

Even the advent of the network data management protocol, didn't seem to help things at first. It usually meant locally attaching a tape drive to a filer and backing up that server's data to that tape drive. This often meant a significant reduction in automation. It didn't help that software vendors were slow to support NDMP, because they saw it as competition to their own client software.

However, a lot has changed in recent years. All major backup-software vendor support NDMP, and you can even use SAN technology to share a tape library between your filers and your other backup servers. Even if you're backing up your filers across the network, gigabit NICs that offload the TCP/IP processing from the host CPU make data transfer over the network much easier and faster, Jumbo frames also helped some vendors.

Another reason that backup and recovery of filers is now less a problem is that some NSA vendors introduced data-protection options equivalent to the options available on many Unix or NT system - including built-in snapshots, mirroring, and replication. Therefore, for what it's worth, my respect for NAS has grown signigicantly in recent years.

Data Backup Cartoon #10

"We Back up our data on sticky notes because sticky notes never crash"

Backup cartoon #9

Before disposing of useless information please make file copies.

What about NAS Backups?

At one time, I felt that NAS had a rather distinct disadvantage. While it did significantly reduce system administration requirements, it created a challenge in one particular area - backup and recovery. Since more NAS filers usually involve a stripped down (or significantly customized) version of the operating system, normal backup and recovery client software often isn't applicable. With a few exceptions, you can't simply buy client software from your backup vendor for your filer. Although this has gotten better, there was a time when the only way to backup your NAS appliance was to use rdump or to back it up via an NFS mount.

Even the advent of the network data management protocol (NDMP) didn't seem to help things at first. It usually meant locally attaching a tape drive to a filer and backing up that server's data to that tape drive. This often meant a significant reduction in automation. It didn't help that software vendors were slow to support NDMP, because they saw it as competition to their own client software.

However, a lost has changed in recent years. All major backup-software vendors support NDMP, and you can even use SAN technology to share a tape library between your filers and your other backup servers. Even if you're backing up your filers across the network, gigabit NICs that offloaded the TCP/IP processing from the host CPU make data transfer over the network much easier and faster. Jumbo frames also helped some vendors.

Another reason that backup and recovery of filers is now less a problem is that some NAS vendors introduced data-protection options equivalent to (and sometimes easier to use than) the options available on many UNIX or NT systems - including built-in shapshots, mirroring and replication. Therefore, for what it's worth, my respect for NAS has grown significantly in recent years.

Backup cartoon #8

'Oh, the magic carpets are just for backup.'

Preparing for the worst

One of the simplest rules of systems administration is that disks and systems fail. If you haven't already lost a system or at least a disk drive, consider yourself extremely lucky. You also might consider the statistical possibility that your time is coming really soon. Backup & recovery should be part of the disaster recovery plan,

My Dad Was Right

My father used to tell me, "There are two types of motorcycle owners. Those who have fallen, and those who will fall." The same rule applies to system administrators. There are those who have lost a disk drive and those who will lose a disk drive. (I'm sure my dad was just trying to keep me from buying a motorcycle, but the logic still applies. That's not bad for a guy who got his first computer last year, don't you think?)

Whenever I speak about my favorite subject at conferences, I always ask questions like, "Who has ever lost a disk drive?" or "Who has lost an entire system?". When I asked those questions there, someone raised his hand and said, "My computer room just got struck by lightning." That sure made for an interesting discussion! If you haven't lost a system, look around you... one of your friend has.

Speaking of old adages, the one that says "It'll never happen to me" applies here as well. Ask anyone who's been mugged if they thought it would happen to them. Ask anyone who's been in a car accident if they ever thought it would happen to them. Ask the guy whose computer room was struck by lightning if he though it would ever happen to him. The answer is always 'No.'

The whole reason of writing this post is to make you able to recover from some level of disaster. Whether it's a user who has accidently or maliciously damaged something or a tornado that has taken out your entire server room, the only way you are going to recover is by having a good, complete, disaster recovery plan that is based on a solid backup and recovery system.

Neither can exist completely without the other. If you have a great backup system but aren't storing your media off-site, you'll be sorry when that tornado hits. You may have the most well organized, well protected set of backup volumes, but they won't be of any help if your backup and recovery system hasn't properly stored the data on those volumes. Getting good backups may be an early step in your disaster recovery plan, but the rest of that plan - organizing and protecting those backups against a disaster - should follow soon after. Although the task may seem daunting, it's not impossible.

Backup cartoon #6

It's good to know your guardian angel is always there to look out for you and can't be charged as an accomplice.