Managing a Rackspace server

[John Fligg]

This applies to any server really, I just happen to use Rackspace.

Perhaps a silly question but ...

On my development machines in the office I use Oops backup for real time backup and Avast Internet Security. Both are great products.

Should I be looking to install these on my server? As my clients can upload images to the server then I suspect Avast is essential.

I would use Oops to backup client data and images to a folder which I could then ftp down every so often to my machines for safe storage offsite.

I have the server backing up daily (As I do not have a managed account only a daily option is available.
) but as Oops could be set to backup every half hour for example just thought this might be an option. I do not find the backup process interferes with my daily work so should not impact on the server at all.

Many thanks

John

[John Fligg]

By way of an update I have just found out that both my backup and anti virus software does not run on a Windows 8 server.

However they do have products which are quite a lot more expensive.

Oops (Altaro) have just provided me with a link to purchase a discounted copy that will run on a server which is still quite high.

I just wondered if anyone had any thoughts on this thread as I feel I need to be doing something but not quite sure about it all.

Thanks

John

[peterH]

Hi John,

I've written a small program to do just this.It runs as a service (using SelfService) and at fixed intervals it collects the names of the databases to backup (as that may vary over time). Then it issues a backup command (using prop:sql) for each db and dumps the .bak files on the server. From there they can be copied, mailed, ftp'ed or whatever. Not very hard to do.

I'm using SQL Server but I guess you can do it for other flavours as well.

Peter

[John Fligg]

Well I was wondering along similar lines, all be it manually.

The server itself is backed up nightly. The application files (exe etc.) I have anyway here permanently backed up off site.

So it's only the actual data itself. That resides in a DATA folder and web/uploads where I store images.

What I have been doing is FTP'ing those 2 folders down to my machine here which forms the backup and then my own backup software backs these up off site. A bit of a hassle but much better than spending a lot of money maintaining backups that maybe I do not really need.

In time I could have a service running to do the same.

Thanks

John

[kevin plummer]

I use a program called super flexible file synchronizer. I think it was $25

It has lots of options and is very "flexible" - I guess that's how it got its name!

[John Fligg]

Thanks Kevin. Just checked it out at $60. That's much cheaper than my other solution.

Can you run that on 2 servers do you know?

Also the Pro version seems to backup say every hour then FTP the backup to my machine. Is that what you do?

Thanks

John

[kevin plummer]

> Can you run that on 2 servers do you know?

You would need to check the license but you could just load on your local server and pull data from as many servers as you like. You can set this to run when ever you want. I actually create a VPN between my server here and external servers as it's just a bit easier to sync the data. They have a 30day evaluation version so you could just test it and see if it fits your needs.

[John Fligg]

Oh, I am looking at this the wrong way actually. I installed the demo on ONE server and set it to backup the folders required on an hourly basis. I am using versioning so over a 24 hour period would end up with 24 copies of any files that have changed.

Then I wrote a script and had my FTP software on my development machine use DCOM to FTP the backup file structure down to an external drive here once a day.

That seems to work for ONE server. But I have two.

I never thought of installing the backup software on my development machine and having it FTP the files down here direct.

I suppose the downside is that server is running 24/7 365 days a year whereas my office machines only run occasionally. I will have to think about this a bit more to find the optimum solution.


Thanks

John