Cloud Backup?

[lxskllr]

I've been tasked with looking into cloud backup for work. Probably the server only, but I might consider the workstations also. Need <1TB for the server. Any services people particularly love? Backblaze and SpiderOak are my leading contenders, but it isn't something I've looked into much. Security needs to be average. If someone got all the data, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, but of course I'd like to avoid that. Price needs to be cheap.

Oh, and revertible files for a period of time is necessary. What brought all this on was someone dicked up some points in an autocad file. This wasn't the first time for this job. It was done before, and required tracking down and fixing the database. Nothing terrible happened /this/ time, but it made us look like dumbasses, and it could always be worse. I might try to do something locally also, as far as permissions/snapshots goes, but I don't use autocad, and the people that do aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, so I can't get a good feel of what needs to be done to keep things under control. Complicated(techie) solutions probably wouldn't work well either, so I doubt something like git would be a good fit.

edit:
Oh, and it's a windows server. It was setup when I got here. Had I built it, it would have been debian.

 

[NoTine42]

If you have enough space on the server, you could possibly enable the essentials server experience
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...tials-or-windows-server-essentials-experience

And enable file history:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-essentials/jj713516(v=ws.11)#understanding-file-history

My only small business cloud backup experience was IDrive. It’s what the customer asked me to install, and it was easy enough to get going. it seems Backblaze leads in the reviews I just looked up.

 

[lxskllr]

If you have enough space on the server, you could possibly enable the essentials server experience
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...tials-or-windows-server-essentials-experience

And enable file history:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-essentials/jj713516(v=ws.11)#understanding-file-history

My only small business cloud backup experience was IDrive. It’s what the customer asked me to install, and it was easy enough to get going. it seems Backblaze leads in the reviews I just looked up.

There's a lot of spare space on the server. Disregarding appropriate freeboard, all the data tripled including the o/s itself would fit. I haven't studied your links, but it looks like that's for versioning workstations as opposed to the server itself? The most important data is kept on the server. The workstations aren't as important. Losing a workstation would be a minor nuisance. I have all of those imaged, so they could be restored with only miscellaneous extraneous files lost; mostly personal stuff.

I'll give some thought to backing the server up to my workstation. I'll need a bigger drive, but not /that/ much bigger. I kinda need to do that anyway. The draftsman's been editing my field files, and he's already fucked a couple up.(Long story that I'm not gonna tell cause I'm already getting pissed...). I basically need to protect the data from numpties.

 

[sdifox]

How many people are we talking about and how many rvisions are you trying to keep? You need to sort out business processes before worrying about offsite backup.

 

[lxskllr]

How many people are we talking about and how many rvisions are you trying to keep? You need to sort out business processes before worrying about offsite backup.

It's two that work with cad files, plus miscellaneous other stuff that everyone uses. It's the cad files that really need revisions. Not sure how many tbh. Probably as many as I can get in a reasonable amount of space. My field files will work with a single revision. I already rsync those to my workstation for upload to megasync to use in the field. I foolishy didn't set it up to make copies cause I didn't anticipate dumbasses pawing through my data.

 

[sdifox]

It's two that work with cad files, plus miscellaneous other stuff that everyone uses. It's the cad files that really need revisions. Not sure how many tbh. Probably as many as I can get in a reasonable amount of space. My field files will work with a single revision. I already rsync those to my workstation for upload to megasync to use in the field. I foolishy didn't set it up to make copies cause I didn't anticipate dumbasses pawing through my data.

Lulz. You don't really need cloud backup if you are talking about two people.
This is a business process issue. Just make sure they always save a new version with updated revision number. Then you back up the file server.

 

[lxskllr]

Lulz. You don't really need cloud backup if you are talking about two people.
This is a business process issue. Just make sure they always save a new version with updated revision number. Then you back up the file server.

We need cloud backup to have off site backup. We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars in data here. I've tried to get it going before, but no one went with it. As far as version# goes... I'm not familiar enough with autocad to know what makes sense, and I'd have as much luck asking my cat as the people who actually use the tools.

It's bullshit really. Those fuckers need to learn their tools, and improve processes. I shouldn't have to learn shit I don't need to do other people's jobs. My end of the business is tight as a drum. I'm completely self sufficient and self sustaining. I expect the same from everyone else...

 

[sdifox]

We need cloud backup to have off site backup. We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars in data here. I've tried to get it going before, but no one went with it. As far as version# goes... I'm not familiar enough with autocad to know what makes sense, and I'd have as much luck asking my cat as the people who actually use the tools.

It's bullshit really. Those fuckers need to learn their tools, and improve processes. I shouldn't have to learn shit I don't need to do other people's jobs. My end of the business is tight as a drum. I'm completely self sufficient and self sustaining. I expect the same from everyone else...

Offsite doesn't have to be cloud either, though cloud is indeed convenient. I would suggest you encrypt whatever your backup solution is.

You can ship a drive to BB for the initial dump and then incremental thereafter.

I am surprised the engineers or architects at your company don't have a versioning mechanism in place.

 

[lxskllr]

Offsite doesn't have to be cloud either, though cloud is indeed convenient. I would suggest you encrypt whatever your backup solution is.

It's more than convenient, it'll actually get done. Yeeears ago we had a tape backup on the old server, and they were supposed to be swapped out and carried home weekly. Two problems... Taking it home probably lasted a time or two, and no one checked if the backups could be restored. I left for awhile and came back. In the meantime the server went down hard, and the tapes were useless, even if they had been current. That's another project for another time... I've posted about it before. I want to try a RAID recovery, but I don't have any of the hardware, or know how it was setup. Three numbered drives, one's dead. I have the good ones imaged. That means the data's there(Probably). Now, I just need to get it...

 

[sdifox]

It's more than convenient, it'll actually get done. Yeeears ago we had a tape backup on the old server, and they were supposed to be swapped out and carried home weekly. Two problems... Taking it home probably lasted a time or two, and no one checked if the backups could be restored. I left for awhile and came back. In the meantime the server went down hard, and the tapes were useless, even if they had been current. That's another project for another time... I've posted about it before. I want to try a RAID recovery, but I don't have any of the hardware, or know how it was setup. Three numbered drives, one's dead. I have the good ones imaged. That means the data's there(Probably). Now, I just need to get it...

Like I said you need better business processes, backupbis not going to help if all your backups have the mistake.

 

[Crono]

OneDrive is the easiest for this. Or Owncloud if you don't mind the setup process, but can be easily deployed on a server or VM/VPS like DigitalOcean (I think they even have one-click deploy, but if not others do).

 

[lxskllr]

OneDrive is the easiest for this. Or Owncloud if you don't mind the setup process, but can be easily deployed on a server or VM/VPS like DigitalOcean (I think they even have one-click deploy, but if not others do).

I'm running a nextcloud instance on my workstation. You might remember the thread. Works great, but no one uses it :^D If I were in the office, I could force it to some extent. My phone messages would be taken in nextcloud, and that would kind of point out the utility of the system. As it is, I don't answer the phone, and I'm not in the office that much. :shrugs: It was interesting setting it up, and it passed some rain time. My one issue is it gets wonky when up too long. I "fixed" it by setting a cron job to restart apache every night. If anyone gave a shit, I'd look into fixing it properly, but that problem isn't that interesting enough(read fun) to just fix.

 

[Skunk-Works]

Would a simple FTP solution work at all? That's my "cloud" solution. I use the FTP server to transfer data from my phone and computers. Better than pulling out an USB stick all the time.

 

[lxskllr]

Would a simple FTP solution work at all? That's my "cloud" solution. I use the FTP server to transfer data from my phone and computers. Better than pulling out an USB stick all the time.

Yea, but you're still paying for space one way or the other. Backblaze is so affordable, it's hard to justify rolling your own. For instance, I could setup a server in the boss' house(my home network isn't suitable), but then I'm buying hardware, and don't have the massive redundancy Backblaze provides at $5/month. That's about what what I pay for lunch I /take/ to work every day, never mind when I eat out.

 

[Skunk-Works]

You could have a RAID 1 array at the office with a UPS. Just a thought.

 

[lxskllr]

You could have a RAID 1 array at the office with a UPS. Just a thought.

That gives you redundancy, but not a backup, and not an off site backup.

 

[Skunk-Works]

That gives you redundancy, but not a backup, and not an off site backup.

I guess so.

 

[Exterous]

I'm assuming an automated process is best? Also - do you have an actual secondary site? If so you can setup a folder sync between the two locations and do a VSS based snapshot\retention policy. This would also work with any of the major cloud vendors.

Sync Back Pro also does a good job with versioning and has a pretty good customizable schedule\rule set. I've only used this between physical locations but it supports most of the major vendors like drive, box, S3 etc. Seems to occasionally have issues with 10TB+ folder sizes or folders with millions of files in them but I've used it to migrate\backup a couple PB of data at this point. (Could be a potential option if the storage vendor doesn't offer the features\decisions you want in their client)

If the 1TB is general backup and likely restores are smaller then Crashplan tends to work well and does versioning. If you could potentially need to restore all 1TB at once their speeds can be quite slow.

OneDrive does versioning as of like 6 months ago and you can choose what files to sync from your computer. Haven't seen the results of versioning used in the field though.

I've seen problems with the sync client with Box so I'm not sure I'd deal with that given the other players in the market.

 

[Skunk-Works]

If it's cloud your after I'd go for Amazon. I know the DoD uses them for non-classified stuff. And they are literately pennies. You can also use CrossFTP. I guess WinSCP can be used, but I never tried it.

 

[ultimatebob]

Yeah, I used to use Amazon S3 has my off-site backup source. You can figure the retention rules to automatically purge files once they hit a certain age, or roll them off to Glacier cold storage.

 

[Exterous]

If it's cloud your after I'd go for Amazon. I know the DoD uses them for non-classified stuff. And they are literately pennies. You can also use CrossFTP. I guess WinSCP can be used, but I never tried it.

Honestly there isn't really a big difference between the major cloud vendors for stuff like simple backups and price goes back and forth

 

[Skunk-Works]

Honestly there isn't really a big difference between the major cloud vendors for stuff like simple backups and price goes back and forth

I don't know. Never really explored anything beyond Amazon S3. I just have this thought in my head the others charged like 5 bucks a month or whatever and Amazon was pennies.

 

[Exterous]

I don't know. Never really explored anything beyond Amazon S3. I just have this thought in my head the others charged like 5 bucks a month or whatever and Amazon was pennies.

They're pretty close these days. If AWS comes out with a price cut you can bet Azure will come out with one in a little bit and undercut S3 slightly prompting AWS to eventually come out with another cut. I don't think GCP has a comparable to Glacier yet but Azure has Archive. I like the AWS interface the least (which seems to be a common complaint) and they suck for Microsoft hybrid scenarios but they are the best at giving discounts and credits to decently sized orgs. I'd say they are more visionary in the cloud space but thats not all that relevant to a backup

 

[deadlyapp]

While having a backup is a good idea, you really should implement some sort of engineering solution. We have some shitty old system called agile but it forces revisions and requires approval in order to supercede a version. You can always look at all the changes made and go back to old revisions if necessary. Doesn't stop someone from downloading local copies and using them, but as long as you force everyone to pull from that (eg purchasing, etc) then you'd have a better shot.

I'm sure there is a very available open source or inexpensive software available to do this.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Would I be wrong in thinking that file versioning would potentially expand the storage needs by a LOT?

Someone working all day on a complex CAD drawing, saves his work every 10-15 minutes ... 30 to 50 versions saved of, say, a 100MB file. That would add up.