Linux server backup tips and strategy for managing backups. High level overview of how to think about backing up your servers and how rackAID has used R1Soft's CDP server to meet our client's data protection needs.

1. Linux Server Management Best Practices: Backup & Recovery Solutions Jeff Huckaby rackAID www.rackaid.com

2. rackAID: Quick Facts 300+ management clients 200 servers in backup farms Backup operations in 4 cities Started with R1Soft in 2007 >90% of clients use backups

3. Backup & Recovery Practices Understanding Data Loss Setting Disaster Recovery Goals Backup & Recovery Questions rackAID & R1Soft Tips, Tricks and Traps Questions?

4. Understanding Data Loss

5. Is this You?

6. Set Your Disaster Recovery Goals Business needs drive your goals: What can you afford to lose? How long can you be down? What is the cost of downtime? Some Goals: Fully restore a failed server in 24 hours. Replace accidently deleted files in 30 minutes. Restored hacked web site files in 1 hour.

7. Backups are Easy Recovery Is Hard #FAIL

8. Backups & Recovery Questions Backup Questions What to backup? When to backup? Where to backup? How often to backup? How long to keep? Legal requirements? Recovery Questions Do I have the assets? Do I have the time? Do I have the staff? How do I test? Remote tools? How often to review?

9. rackAID’s Goals: Enter R1Soft By Setting Goals You Set Expectations Be able to recover failed server in under 24 hours. Be able to recover files quickly (< 30 mins) and easily. Centralized management and reporting. Scalable solution – add storage or servers as needed Extensible solutions – integrate into existing operations via API. Commodity hardware – no special hardware to buy. Clear flexible licensing – fits our MSP business model. Good error reporting – make it easy for us to spot issues. Pure Linux environment – must be Linux.

10. rackAID’s R1Soft Deployment Locations: Dallas, DC, Seattle, NYC Disks: >4 SATA Disks in RAID 5 or 10 CPU: Dual Core or Better RAM: 4GB or more Network: GigE Throughout

11. Backup Management Tools Cacti Nagios Splunk> Kayako Help Desk

12. Data and Server Recovery Data Restores Conflicting processes Watch network loads Watch disk capacity Bare Metal Restores KVM over IP Rescue console Kernel Rebuilds

13. Backup and Recovery Pitfalls Corrupt File Systems System may not boot Too many files Slow restores Too slow a network 10Mbits = ~4 GB/hr Too small a disk No bare metal restore Isolated backups Delays recovery

14. Backup and Recovery Tips Check file systems as needed. Don’t backup what you don’t need. Keep tabs on backup server capacity Test, test and test again. Backup errors signal hardware issues. Disk safe verifications are important. Maintain written recovery procedures.

15. Questions? Contact Me: Jeff Huckaby jeff@rackaid.com rackAID Services www.rackaid.com contact@rackaid.com