Chances are you had to:

1.  Get a replacement server.
2.  Rebuild the OS
3.  Rebuild the application – get the license keys, assistance from consultants
4.  Restore the OS data
5.  Restore the applications (database, mail, etc.)

If it was a VM and you had a VM Backup, then it was a lot easier!

How to plan your backup strategy

To help you avoid these painful restore scenarios, it is important to properly plan your backup strategy.   Backup should be more than just thinking of backing up files.

A few things I recommend that you should consider:

1. How to execute an OS rebuild

OS rebuilds can be a pain, especially reinstalling the applications.  So you should consider some sort of OS restore capability.  This is typically called an OS image backup or a Bare Metal Recovery. Different software has different capabilities for this.  And different OS, such as Windows, Linux, and AIX also have different capabilities for this.

To recover your operating system, you’ll need to perform a bare metal recovery and choose the options so that only the data on critical volumes (volumes that contain operating system files) are restored.

When you perform a recovery of the operating system or full server, you’ll need to specify the following:

•    What backup you will use;
•    Whether you’ll perform an operating system–only or full server recovery;
•    Whether you’ll reformat and repartition your disks.

In a full server recovery, when you choose to reformat and repartition all disks, the existing data will be deleted. This includes any volumes that are currently used by the server but were not included in the backup.

To recover the operating system or a full server, you should first do the following:

If you’re recovering to a new hard disk, make sure the disk is at least as big as the disk that contained the  volumes that were backed up, regardless of the size of those volumes.

If you’re recovering just the operating system, make sure that you have a backup available that contains at least the critical volumes of the server. If you’re recovering the full server, then make sure that you have a backup available that contains all volumes of the server. To perform a bare metal recovery, make sure you have a backup enabled for bare metal recovery (or full server recovery).

2.  How to achieve application consistent backups

A consistent backup of a database or part of a database will be achieved when all read/write data files and control files are check pointed with the same SCN.

Most applications such as Oracle, SQL and other databases such as MS Exchange, SharePoint and SAP, need to be backed up in a consistent state - i.e. application aware to guarantee recoverability.

3.  How to meet the most stringent recovery objectives with VMware / Hyper V backups

As organizations virtualize more business-critical applications, it is imperative to consider end-to-end protection. If your hypervisor of choice is VMware, it means that VMware backup and data recovery need to be critical components of your IT process. VMware backup must be transparent and application performance impact minimized, while VMware data recovery must be able to meet the most stringent recovery objectives.

There are ways to take advantage of the vStorage API and do VMware / Hyper V online backups.  This saves a lot of time and headaches. Also, VM backups can be application aware using the Microsoft VSS Shadowcopy Services.

Adopting a unified backup solution for any type of recovery can also eliminate the cumbersome process of cobbling together tools from multiple vendors for VMware backup, Hyper-V, the physical hosts they run on, the backup of the backup server, and deduplication.

So all these must be properly planned and designed in your backup /DR solution.

Do you have a particularly tough business or IT question that no one seems to be able to answer?
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Don’t hesitate to call me at 1-866-610-8489 or drop me a line to discuss your challenges and get answers.

Paul Oh, Vice President Services
Sentia