Backup Software - Retail store backup & recovery

Author

Retail store backup & recovery

twillwerth@lindt.com

2005-09-26, 5:54 pm

I am a Point-Of-Sale administrator trying to implement a backup &
recovery solution for our 250 retail store registers in the next month
if
possible. I have been testing several solutions i.e. Norton Ghost, NT
Backup, etc. and have yet to establish a solid solution. Considering
our platform could you give me your best practices or recommendation,
drawing on solutions that you have seen work for yourself / clients?

Platform:
All Windows 2000/XP / Intel machines / @2Ghx / 512 MB RAM
Reg1 has 2 x 40 GB physical hard drives C: and D:
Reg2 has 1 x 40 GB physical hard drive C:
100baseT Ethernet LAN between registers

Slow (56K) WAN connection to corporate network.
12am - 6am is system dedicated time period for backups, maintenance,
etc.

Running MSSQL, Outlook (connected to Exchange), Point-Of-Sale
application.

Challenge:
To be able to restore either register on-site from the last backup
point. A technician would need to bring a blank hard drive to the
site. We would not want to have to re-install Windows. (Bare metal
restore)

I am trying to find the best fit solution for what we are trying to
do. Cost is not a big factor, but a high-cost solution would take more
justifying and therefore more time to implement.

DevDude

2005-09-26, 8:46 pm

Backup Exec has a few options to help with your needs.

Since you are connected to these systems continously via your WAN link,
there is the Central Administration Server Option which would allow you to
manage the remote backups from a central server and monitor the backup jobs
at the remote sites. The jobs run locally on each backup server in the
remote sites, and they roll up their job details, etc to the central server.
Each local backup server can be scheduled to run the backups during any time
window you specify. Backups can be performed to tape or HDD while the system
is online.

There is also an Intelligent Disaster Recovery option that will back up the
system configuration information to a CD or floppies, so in the event of a
failure, you boot to the CD and perform a restore of the system.

There are agents for SQL, and Exchange that will protect those services
while they are running. For protecting the POS application, you can run a
pre-command as part of the backup that could shut down the application to
ensure the data is consistent prior to backup, or you can use our open file
option to backup the data while its active.(I doubt there are many changes
during that time of night

If you would like to see it in action, visit http://www.backupexec.com and
download an evaluation copy for free. You can use the product for 60 days
free of charge with all options enabled.

If you need further information for your scenario, you can reach a
representative knowledgeable on the product at 1.800.327.2232, or visit
http://www.veritas.com.

Thanks
Nick

<twillwerth@lindt.com> wrote in message
news:1127745466.899491.3670@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>I am a Point-Of-Sale administrator trying to implement a backup &
> recovery solution for our 250 retail store registers in the next month
> if
> possible. I have been testing several solutions i.e. Norton Ghost, NT
> Backup, etc. and have yet to establish a solid solution. Considering
> our platform could you give me your best practices or recommendation,
> drawing on solutions that you have seen work for yourself / clients?
>
> Platform:
> All Windows 2000/XP / Intel machines / @2Ghx / 512 MB RAM
> Reg1 has 2 x 40 GB physical hard drives C: and D:
> Reg2 has 1 x 40 GB physical hard drive C:
> 100baseT Ethernet LAN between registers
>
> Slow (56K) WAN connection to corporate network.
> 12am - 6am is system dedicated time period for backups, maintenance,
> etc.
>
> Running MSSQL, Outlook (connected to Exchange), Point-Of-Sale
> application.
>
> Challenge:
> To be able to restore either register on-site from the last backup
> point. A technician would need to bring a blank hard drive to the
> site. We would not want to have to re-install Windows. (Bare metal
> restore)
>
> I am trying to find the best fit solution for what we are trying to
> do. Cost is not a big factor, but a high-cost solution would take more
> justifying and therefore more time to implement.
>

Joe Rom King

2005-09-27, 7:48 am

If you have a USB port, I recommend using external USB disks as the
backup media.

Considering your total disk space of 120GB, I recommend using 250GB
disk, it will allow the last image of every one of the three disks,
space for data based backup, plus plenty of room to grow.

To increase the reliability of the backup, use two backup disks and use
them in rotation.

Now I also suggest taking two kinds of backups, namely image and data
backup.

You can use any disk-imaging backup such as Ghost 2003 for imaging the
disks. Keep the latest image of every disk.

I also suggest to backup the data files, and keep several months of
history, so you will be able to recover a single file that could have
been unnoticeably deleted for several weeks. Look at Relative Rev
Backup (http://www.datamills.com) it can save multiple backup
generations without multiplying the backup space.

Joe Rom King

Cubixs

2005-10-01, 5:47 pm

Take a look at Unitrends.

Recomendation
Disk 2 disk backup and BMR

Corporate:
DPU3000/DPV This system will provide BMR rapid recovery and also
serve as the vault repository for the remote locations.

Remote POS locations:
DPU-400 SFF (HotSwap)
1. all locations sync at a block level back up to the corporate
location as schedule by you.
2. Hotswap - there are two drives in the SFF so you can hotswap as
needed.

BMR of a 40GB drive is less than 20 min.
Backup speeds are 350-450 GB per min.

I would recomend when calling you ask for a SE rather than having to
talk with a sales rep. Skip and Joe are the two that we've worked
with.

Best of luck.
cubixs

p.s I dont remmeber exactly the cost but it was less than everything
else we looked at.

On 26 Sep 2005 07:37:46 -0700, twillwerth@lindt.com wrote:

>I am a Point-Of-Sale administrator trying to implement a backup &
>recovery solution for our 250 retail store registers in the next month
>if
>possible. I have been testing several solutions i.e. Norton Ghost, NT
>Backup, etc. and have yet to establish a solid solution. Considering
>our platform could you give me your best practices or recommendation,
>drawing on solutions that you have seen work for yourself / clients?
>
>Platform:
>All Windows 2000/XP / Intel machines / @2Ghx / 512 MB RAM
>Reg1 has 2 x 40 GB physical hard drives C: and D:
>Reg2 has 1 x 40 GB physical hard drive C:
>100baseT Ethernet LAN between registers
>
>Slow (56K) WAN connection to corporate network.
>12am - 6am is system dedicated time period for backups, maintenance,
>etc.
>
>Running MSSQL, Outlook (connected to Exchange), Point-Of-Sale
>application.
>
>Challenge:
>To be able to restore either register on-site from the last backup
>point. A technician would need to bring a blank hard drive to the
>site. We would not want to have to re-install Windows. (Bare metal
>restore)
>
>I am trying to find the best fit solution for what we are trying to
>do. Cost is not a big factor, but a high-cost solution would take more
>justifying and therefore more time to implement.

dragon

2005-10-04, 8:47 pm

In article <1127745466.899491.3670@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, twillwerth@lindt.com says...

What type of POS is it? I worked for NCR and have found that if it is a
hard disk based POS then just backup data in each POS and keep 1 master
backup incase of disk replacement. I have several sites that use Backup
Exec. It seems to be the best if the server is a windows NT system

> I am a Point-Of-Sale administrator trying to implement a backup &
> recovery solution for our 250 retail store registers in the next month
> if
> possible. I have been testing several solutions i.e. Norton Ghost, NT
> Backup, etc. and have yet to establish a solid solution. Considering
> our platform could you give me your best practices or recommendation,
> drawing on solutions that you have seen work for yourself / clients?
>
> Platform:
> All Windows 2000/XP / Intel machines / @2Ghx / 512 MB RAM
> Reg1 has 2 x 40 GB physical hard drives C: and D:
> Reg2 has 1 x 40 GB physical hard drive C:
> 100baseT Ethernet LAN between registers
>
> Slow (56K) WAN connection to corporate network.
> 12am - 6am is system dedicated time period for backups, maintenance,
> etc.
>
> Running MSSQL, Outlook (connected to Exchange), Point-Of-Sale
> application.
>
> Challenge:
> To be able to restore either register on-site from the last backup
> point. A technician would need to bring a blank hard drive to the
> site. We would not want to have to re-install Windows. (Bare metal
> restore)
>
> I am trying to find the best fit solution for what we are trying to
> do. Cost is not a big factor, but a high-cost solution would take more
> justifying and therefore more time to implement.
>
>