[SAC] Re: [support.osuosl.org #20349] Backup Implementation for OSGeo VMs

[tech at wildintellect.com via RT]

On 03/01/2012 04:35 PM, Lance Albertson via RT wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 6:47 AM, Martin Spott via RT <support at osuosl.org>wrote:
> 
>> The combined net disk space on the OSGeo VM's is approx. 2 TByte and,
>> even though we currently don't use all of it, I think it's a good idea
>> being prepared to do so.
>>
> 
> That's going to take a nice chunk of space on our server but
> its manageable. Does your project have any funding to offset the costs of
> having us do the backups? I can give you an estimate for that if you'd like.
> 

Yes, we'd like an estimate per GB, or 100 GB or 1 TB. Whichever units
make sense. The alternative we've been considering is buying a new server.

> 
>> My favourite is to do one full backup per week, differentials every day
>> and to keep a full backup at least until the successor has finished, at
>> best until shortly before n+2 gets written to the media.
>> I was informed that we don't require retaining months of backup
>> history.  Thus the space requirements would account to approx.
>> 4.5 - 5 TByte (two full backups plus one busy week of differentials).
>>
> 
> We tend to retain more backups ourselves but we can have a specific
> schedule for your backups that meet your needs. We currently use SSL
> enabled connections so we'll have to give you some keys to get it to work
> with our setup. Do you have any special FileSet filters you use so you
> don't backup stuff like logs?
> 

A copy of our current bacula director config has been sent to Lance. In
some cases (e.g. Apache) we actually want to keep some logs. We are
still undergoing some refinement to make the whole thing more efficient.

I assume you can take care of the keys, since you have access to all the
guests.

> 
>> Currently we're backing up approx. 10 clients, I'd expect the number to
>> grow slightly.
>>
> 
> *nods* Currently restores have to be initiated by us but we are working
> towards creating access to work around that. Will this be a problem?
> 
> Thanks-
> 
Generally no, we hope to never have a need for such a restore and in
such an event we'd likely be filing a ticket with you anyways because
something went wrong with the hardware or VMs. Though access to extract
some files from the backups would be nice long term.


> 
> On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 6:47 AM, Martin Spott via RT <support at osuosl.org 
> <mailto:support at osuosl.org>> wrote:
> 
>     The combined net disk space on the OSGeo VM's is approx. 2 TByte and,
>     even though we currently don't use all of it, I think it's a good idea
>     being prepared to do so.
> 
> 
> That's going to take a nice chunk of space on our server but its

We're more than happy to buy disks if that's the best solution.

Thanks,
Alex