You
need to understand the requirements for recovering your server and data
in your organization, most likely dictated by service-level agreements
(SLA). SLAs define the amounts of time allowed for the recovery of your
servers and what data needs to be available. Another item they define
is retention of data, or how long to keep your data. In some
environments, you may need to retain data for up to seven years for
auditing purposes. (And believe me: The auditors will show up and
expect to have access to the data.)
The
first step in managing your backups is to devise a backup policy. You
need to consider the different types of backups needed, which depends
on your organization’s infrastructure. The following are some of the
different backups to consider:
Note
In
this book we cover only Windows Server 2008 system state (ASR) and file
system data backups and restores using the backup utility within
Windows. In a real-world scenario, you would probably use a third-party
tool, such as IBM’s Tivoli Enterprise or Symantec’s NetBackup. Usually
these third-party tools also allow you to set the number of versions of
a file you want to keep.
Say that you work with your business division and come up with the following SLAs for server and data recovery:
Data files must be recoverable from at least the prior business day.
Server recovery should be less than or no more than six hours.
Data must be retained for at least five years.
Keeping
these SLAs in mind, you need to make sure you have a daily backup of
all data files and system state. You also need to have a plan that
incorporates five-year retention of data, possibly on a monthly archive
backup. And you need to consider your space requirements for this and
also the media used, as some tape media may not have a good storage
life.
If you think
about this for a bit, you will realize that a daily backup of all data
will cause you to duplicate quite a bit of data on your backups every
day. This would waste storage and also require a large backup window
(that is, time to run the backup). Ideally, you want to run the backups
during a time when server utilization is at its lowest and finish prior
to the start of the business day. Making incremental backups of data is
the solution to this issue. You can perform full data backups on the
weekend (usually when you can afford to have a larger backup window)
and then perform incremental backups during the week. Incremental
backups back up only the data that changes since the last backup. The
drawback to this solution, in the past, was the time it would take to
restore the data; you would first have to restore the last full backup
and then restore the incremental backups. With Windows Server 2008, you
no longer need to restore from multiple backups. Instead, you just
choose the date of the backup you would like to restore.
Note
Some
third-party backup solutions use what is called “forever incremental”
technology. This technology allows you to set your backups to back up
only what has changed, and it also keeps active the data that has not
changed. When the unchanged data remains active, the restore time will
be shorter because you will need to perform only one restore—not
restore the full backup and then all the differentials. Many backup
solutions back up only what has changed on the block level of a file.
Windows Server 2008 also backs up on the block level. Backing up on the
block level only backs up identical data once, even if the data can be
found on different files. An example of this would be a company
letterhead. The letterhead is on many files but is only backed up once
with pointers to each file that uses the letterhead. This technology
improves space utilization.
Now let’s look at how to configure Windows Server 2008 to back up your data files and system state on a schedule:
1. | Select Start, Administrative Tools, Windows Server Backup. The Windows Server Backup window appears.
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2. | In
the Actions pane, click on Backup Schedule to invoke the Backup
Schedule Wizard. A scheduled backup automatically includes the system
state.
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3. | Click Next on the Getting Started page.
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4. | Select one of two options:
- Full Server: Select this option to back up all the data, applications, and system state.
- Custom: Select this option to exclude some volumes from your scheduled backup.
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5. | On
the Backup Configuration page, select Custom and click Next. On the
page that appears next, you can exclude volumes. However, notice that
you can’t exclude a volume that contains the OS files.
Note
If
you had chosen to do a one-time backup, you would be given the option
Enable System Recovery at this point to include the system state. If
this box is unchecked, you are not forced to back up the volume that
contains the OS.
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6. | Specify the time of day the backup should run. Or, if you like, you can back up the data multiple times in one day.
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7. | Select
your destination type. Windows Server Backup looks for external disks
to which to back up the data. You can select a local volume by clicking
Show Available Disks; however, in this case, the backup utility
reformats that disk and uses it solely for backup data, and you will no
longer be able to see the disk via Windows Explorer. The backup disk
selected needs to be at least 1.5 times the size of the amount of data being backed up. If it isn’t, you will not be able to complete the Backup Schedule Wizard.
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If you choose to do a one-time backup, you have some additional options:
You can select a local disk or provide a UNC path to a shared folder as a backup destination.
You can allow all users who have permission to the share access to back up data or specify a user.
You
can decide whether to use VSS Copy backup or VSS Full backup. Use VSS
Copy backup if you use third-party backup software to back up your data
to ensure that the third-party software will still see the file as not
backed up. (Remember that this is a one-time backup that you can run to
make sure you back up some select files.)
Note
When
launching the Windows Server Backup utility, you may receive the notice
“Windows Server Backup is not installed on this computer.” You then
need to install the feature from Server Manager. If the command-line
feature is selected, you need to also install Windows PowerShell.
Here’s how you recover a file that has been backed up:
1. | From the Actions pane in the Windows Server Backup utility, click Recover to open the Recovery Wizard.
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2. | Select to recover files from the local computer rather than from a remote computer.
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3. | Choose the date you want to recover the file from.
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4. | Choose Files and Folders from the three recovery types:
Files and Folders Application Volume
You can now navigate to the file you intend to recover. Obviously, you
needed to have backed up a file or folder to see it available for
recovery here.
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5. | Select one of the three recovery options:
Specify the location you would like to recover the file to. Indicate what to do if a duplicate file exists in that location. Restore the security settings.
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6. | Confirm your choices and perform the recovery.
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