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Hi everyone,

I’m looking for advice on backup strategies for small businesses (less than 20 PCs and 1 Windows server with VMs and SQL, 500GB total data).

Currently, I use the following solutions:

  • Incremental forever image backup: I perform a full system image to a NAS overnight using Macrium Reflect Server.
  • SQL backup: I perform an SQL database backup midday.
  • Data backup: I back up the data folder to S3 overnight.

I’m worried this might not be enough, but my clients have a very limited budget, almost non-existent.

Out of curiosity, how do more advanced companies (20-50pc 1-2 phisical server) create their PC, server, and backup infrastructure, and what kind of budget do they typically have?

I’m a tech/sysadmin primarily working with Windows for several years, but only for very small businesses. I’m eager to learn more :slight_smile:

Thanks!

4 Spice ups
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500GB? That’s a tiny system.

The basics apply to all businesses and anyone else who values their data, 3-2-1, 3 copies of the data on 2 types of media with 1 being off-site.

Immutable backups where possible - your S3 may handle this.

What do you think is missing - excluding costs for the purpose of discussion.

3 Spice ups
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only one daily backup.
Maybe a backup every hour would be fine? but poor servers and limited space on small qnap, don’t help.
To be honest, I would like to do more, but I don’t have the resources and knowledge :slight_smile:

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That is a question for you and business owners. Just ask how much data you can afford to lose in case of disaster (which is your RPO) and define your backup frequency and retention in accordance with the answer.

Try to prioritize your data and define what is important and should be backed up more frequently and what can be saved on a weekly basis only.

Not enough for what? Try to imagine possible disasters (OS corrupted, server dead, ransomware attack, Active Directory dead, disk(s) failure, backup NAS dead, etc.) you may encounter and plan in detail what you do in case of each. Such documentation will show you any potential gaps in your backup strategy right away.

https://www.starwindsoftware.com/whitepapers/developing-a-complete-rto-rpo-strategy.pdf
https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/3-2-1-backup-strategy-why-your-data-always-survives

3 Spice ups
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That’s likely excessive unless they are a bank or a fortune-500 company, which it doesn’t sound like they are.

You need to establish what the realistic time is that they can be down, all companies will say never, but some time is fine, so what is that time - a day? a week? 30 minutes?

Retaining uptime and retention costs money, so they need to be realistic.

3 Spice ups
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You have to define your acceptable data loss window. This is called the Recovery Point Objective, or RPO. Everyone will always say zero but that’s not realistic for most places.

I would say Databases often have a lower RPO than files on a share. You could do incrementals more often during the day. The incrementals should not be much different than doing a big backup once a day.

3-2-1 has been covered. You can have different RPOs for different mediums. I want more frequent backups for immediate recovery, I can do that without considerable additional cost. It may cost me more for a DR backup to S3, so I may do that less often. The odds of the building burning down and needing to go to the DR backup are far less than an oops that requires a rollback of the database.

You and management are ultimately the only ones that can decide what’s acceptable within the budget you have.

2 Spice ups
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I would think to always look at backup strategies from a recovery point of view.

  1. One reason why initially most “backup software” or “backup plans” are named from recovery, like RPO & RTO “Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO)” or BMR “bare metal recovery” etc

  2. There need to be different approaches to backing up of different systems

  • Client machines : Do you really need to perform BMR or just re-install OS & applications (or buy new lappy) and restore user files ?
  • Domain Controllers : Replicate DCs or recover DCs (its a best practise NEVER to restore DCs)
  • DB servers : Should you perform BMR or full reovery VS fresh install and restore data
  • hosts (VMware or Hyper-v etc) : Do you need to recover hosts or just fresh install ?
  1. Backup methods (client machines)
    BMR or just user files ? In Veeam agent for Windows, there is a backup function called “user personal files” where literally files within c:\users (without temp files and appdata temp) are backup.
  • reduces size of backup data sets
  • if you have very similar machines, you can take a BMR of a newly installed machine to be used as a BMR template, restore this to as many many machines as required (during DR) then restore user data

  1. Backup methods (VMs) - For non DCs and non DB servers
    Would you prefer to use “forever increment” or “reverse increment” backups ? The question lies in how many retentions would you have & what is your likely recovery scenario ?
    In most cases of recovery, we would likely use the latest backup copy. With increment backups, the backup solution would be literally recovering the full backup with the number of times there are increments with the dependency of the increment backup data sets.
    So imagine if today is 21st June and your “forever Increment” have 10 days retention, which means the full backup was done on 10th June. The VM got corrupted and you need 20th June Backup data set, the backup solution would need to “merge” the increments from 11th to 20th with the full backup done on 10th June to recover ? What if the backup data set on 15th June had some mishap (eg corrupted while backing up) ?

  2. Issue with only 1 physical server as host…

  • What happens if you need to update server firmware ?
  • What happens if you need to update hypervisor ?
  • What happens if there is a need to change faulty server hardware components ?
  1. Backing up to the cloud ? There are 3 sides to the coin…I would not say much about the up sides…
  • How long does it take to upload or download the backup data sets ?
  • Under what circumstances would you “activate” these backup data sets ?
  • Are your VMs ready to be moved to the cloud (eg VMware on AWS) ?
    The last question some what answers certain DR plans if my office or data center burns down (worse case scenario). TESTED plans have been put into place to recover the VMs into VMs and/or EC2 instances in AWS with the setting up of VPC, VPC peering, routing etc
2 Spice ups
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Thank you for participating in this post, I find it interesting to hear how you approach and think about backup management.
The problem for an IT technician is that they know so many ways to destroy data, even the servers of large multinational companies cannot prevent data loss.

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Hi Enricosx,

I understand the challenges you’re facing with limited budgets for backup solutions. Based on your current setup, it seems you’re doing well with Macrium Reflect Server for full system images, SQL database backups, and data folder backups to S3. However, adding an additional layer of security and reliability could be beneficial.

I recommend considering Parablu for your backup strategy. Parablu offers comprehensive backup solutions that are both cost-effective and secure, making them ideal for small businesses like yours. Here’s how Parablu can help:

  1. BluVault for Endpoint Backup: Provides secure and automated backup for PCs, ensuring all critical data is protected. With BluVault, you can perform regular backups to your NAS or directly to cloud storage like S3.
  2. BluVault for Server Backup: Ensures your Windows servers, including VMs and SQL databases, are backed up efficiently. It offers incremental backups, reducing the storage footprint and ensuring quick recovery when needed.
  3. Cost-Effective Solutions: Parablu’s solutions are designed to be budget-friendly, perfect for small businesses with tight financial constraints.
  4. Advanced Security: With Parablu, your data is encrypted both in transit and at rest, providing robust security against potential threats.

In terms of how more advanced companies handle their backups, they typically employ a combination of on-site and cloud-based solutions, often using enterprise-grade software that includes automated backup, disaster recovery, and regular testing of backup integrity. Their budgets can vary widely but generally allow for more sophisticated infrastructure and redundancy.

Feel free to reach out if you need more details or assistance with setting up Parablu’s solutions. https://parablu.com/

Thanks and good luck!

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Whatever is the size of your business, data is always very important.

As a rule of thumb, aim to have three copies of your data on two different media, with one copy offsite. This ensures redundancy and protection against various failure scenarios.

Several vendor companies offer affordable solutions that align with the 3-2-1 backup rule. These solutions often include a combination of on-premises and cloud-based storage options. Take a bit of time and explore the best option for you. Check with them, how such solutions can satisfy your needs.

Test your backups regularly for integrity and restoreability. This is crucial to ensure your backup strategy is 100% effective. Some software will have in-built mechanism to check this.

Determine how long you need to retain different types of data and implement a retention policy accordingly.

Have a detailed DRP (disaster recovery plan) with steps to recover your systems and data in case of a disaster.

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Be honest and thoughtful about your recovery objectives, and costs involved. If the data can be recreated in an day, what would a day’s loss of access to that data cost the business? Don’t spend more than that trying to be able to recover it.

We had a fire destroy one of our locations.
It was nasty, but not in the ways you might expect.

Without a store front to sell from, or stock to sell, recovery was pointless until that was in place…

Weird issues arose - e.g. Getting new networking gear, for a temporary location, as well as planning for a new permanent location, simultaneously, while realizing nothing we could purchase would be the same as the old gear, so stored configs were of limited use, and layouts completely different…

Even if its just you and paper notebook and pencil, spend some time thinking about different scenarios and what your part of getting back to normal will actually require, and how fast it needs to happen. Then look at how you achieve that.