Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Hosting Security and Technology : Backup Solution: Arkeia or Bakbone NetVault

[CoolMike]

Hi

We have 20 Linux servers running WHM/Cpanel with MySQL. To improve out backup and restore concept, we are searching a good backup solution. The following two are now in the final decision:

Arkeia Network Backup
Bakbone NetVault

We use it for disk to disk backup and need to have a mysql plugin on each server. After a long round, we have now both solution in the same price area.

Which software would you take, or can you recommend?

We have to decide very soon, therefore fast answers are very much appreciated.

Michael

[whoppe]

How about neither? I've bought licenses for both arkeia and for BakBone.
Spending more money than I want to admit. Right now i'm running http://www.ahsay.com/ and is very happy with this. It supports mysql backups and normal file backups.

Why is this so much nicer than other software i've worked with? It boils down to two things.

1) not using virtual tape libraries and stuff like that.
2) reporting, reporting, reporting. This software will actively tell you through email how everything is.

For every backup that is made it'll send an email report telling you the state of the backup. It will also do so for failed backups and for backups that didnt run within the scheduled time.

I believe every backup software will have its own set of flaws, ahsay has a couple However, you are alerted with regards to them so they do not scale to become a disaster.

Also, given its price range its very affordable. If im not mistaken (running a leased licensing model), this software will cost you about $100/month for your 30 servers.

Maybe you dont like it, but in my honest opinion you should atleast give it a go.

[CoolMike]

Hi whoppe

Thanks for your answer. If I understand it right, ahsay is a online backup solution. I don't see, how this could improve the speed of recovery in an emergency case. At the moment we save the cpanel backup files to a NAS, but the restore takes to long. There fore we search a backup solution which has a disaster recovery module.

Michael

[whoppe]

Originally Posted by CoolMike

Hi whoppe

Thanks for your answer. If I understand it right, ahsay is a online backup solution. I don't see, how this could improve the speed of recovery in an emergency case. At the moment we save the cpanel backup files to a NAS, but the restore takes to long. There fore we search a backup solution which has a disaster recovery module.

Michael

Sure, it is meant to be an online backup solution. However, you do have the backup server locally so its no more online than cpanel backups to a NAS.

Also, let me ask. How often have you actually needed bare metal recovery?
We have never ever needed this, we're currently running about 140 servers and have yet not had a need for bare metal recovery.

I dont know CPanel that well since I dont use it, but hsphere which I do use
makes life very easy on recovering a normal unix box:

1) reinstall OS
2) recreate resources
3) restore data

again, i've never had to do this for bare metal recovery reasons

I will assume you do use raid on your boxes?