Backup System For 5 PC SMB

scottalanmiller

Disaster Recovery – Recover your entire PC in minutes to the same location, to dissimilar hardware, or to a virtual desktop.
Quickly restore data locally or remotely. In the event of hardware failure or natural disaster, recover an entire PC in minutes
with Acronis’ fast bare-metal restore.

Restore a system to the same or different hardware or to virtual environments with StorageCraft Recovery Environment and HIR
Rapidly boot a backup image as a virtual machine (temporary system failover) with VirtualBoot

If the OS installed on the computer fails to start for some reason, you can boot
the OS from the recovery image. Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE lets you create a
bootable recovery image of your computer on different kinds of media,

Virtual Image Boot (Technology Preview)
The ability to directly convert a Macrium System Image file into a running VM. Provides instant boot of failed systems for business continuity.

So of those, the only one that is American is StorageCraft. The others are all Russian, I believe. I know two are. The only two that I know are desktop products are from areas that are not covered by the MS licenses, right? So for them in their local area, they can do that.

BRRABill

@scottalanmiller said:

Which one of these is a desktop backup product? All of the ones that you were mentioning were server products that just don't stop you from using them on desktops, right?

Every one was the desktop version of their product.

For example, here is StorageCraft:
https://www.storagecraft.com/products/shadowprotect-desktop-backup

scottalanmiller

A good example of this is NComputing. Remember them? Everyone had the same discussion about them - they sold a product whose apparent intent was to turn a Windows desktop into a full blown terminal server. Everyone kept saying "if they sell it, obviously it is legal."

But of course it doesn't work that way. It is perfectly legal "to sell it", the product could be used in legitimate ways (but none that made any sense.) Products like this put ALL onus on the end users to get the right licenses to do what they want. Remember that this will work just fine if you work out an EA license with the right terms with MS or if you use Linux desktops or whatever. The vendors have no reason to care about the license since it isn't their problem and is often quite complex.

NComputing also was based in China so had no concerns about whether they would be held accountable for selling something whose only actual purpose was to violate a license.

scottalanmiller

Another great example is CloudatCost who used to be active both here and in SW. They sold Microsoft cloud servers. Except, they pushed the licensing to the end users. And MS doesn't offer any license that can be used. So literally they were a cloud vendor without a product with any legal means to use. None.

But since all risk went to the customers, they didn't care and kept selling the product as it was, and still do, long after it was public that they couldn't legally be used.

BRRABill

@scottalanmiller said:

It would never have occurred to me that someone would even try this

But as I said, almost every desktop backup product that does block level or image based backups touts this as a feature.

That's why I know about it. We moved from the world of tape into the likes of this kind of abckups, most of who offer desktop options.

BRRABill

Again, not arguing, just trying to get my facts straight before going back to our vendors.

It seems to me they are doing exactly what you say. Making a lot of money selling a product that isn't legal to be used.

scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said:

Again, not arguing, just trying to get my facts straight before going back to our vendors.

It seems to me they are doing exactly what you say. Making a lot of money selling a product that isn't legal to be used.

That may be true, that's a common thing to do. Although keep in mind a few things:

It might be legal in other places.
The world is not all Windows and other OSes can do this legally.
That they offer the feature is just a feature, how it relates to licensing is not their concern and they easily have no idea.
Licensing is complex and changes, the feature could easily become useful.
The technology has uses, just not in all the possible ways to use it.
Their competitors offer that feature and get customers from offering it, lacking it puts a vendor at a disadvantage so they can't avoid offering it in a competitive marketplace.

scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said:

But as I said, almost every desktop backup product that does block level or image based backups touts this as a feature.

The nature of block and image backup technologies means that this is just sitting there, waiting to be used. They would basically have to block it to cripple themselves to not offer it. The ability to restore as an image to the original machine gives them the ability to restore to others. It's just the "nature of the thing."

scottalanmiller

The technology has its place. Imagine and block backups can be a good thing. Like virtualization, though, it often makes doing things that are not licensed usage very, very easy.

BRRABill

In a perfect world though, this technology would be awesome.

The selling point of something like Datto is that is a key system goes down, I can spin up a virtual copy of it (either locally or in the cloud in a real disaster) and my users won't even know the difference.

I'm not asking to pirate the software. I'm asking to put a virtual representation of the system I've already licensed on the network until I get the original server fixed. To be honest, I feel it's complete BS that is prohibited. (For desktops.) We'll get to the servers later.

scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said:

In a perfect world though, this technology would be awesome.

Indeed, although in a perfect world, we wouldn't need it

scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said:

The selling point of something like Datto is that is a key system goes down, I can spin up a virtual copy of it (either locally or in the cloud in a real disaster) and my users won't even know the difference.

Yup, and if you were talking Windows servers, that would work that way. It's just for desktops. In theory, you still need a device for the users to use to access the VMs if their device has failed. So even with this technology, what does it really provide? Just restore to the new device instead of spinning one up remotely. Should be just as fast to get the new device working.

scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said:

I'm not asking to pirate the software. I'm asking to put a virtual representation of the system I've already licensed on the network until I get the original server fixed. To be honest, I feel it's complete BS that is prohibited. (For desktops.) We'll get to the servers later.

Then I recommend Linux Mint

BRRABill

I know, I know. Write my own desktop OS and license it.

scottalanmiller

Although the question would remain and we must be missing something in your previous planning....

If you have five desktops, and one dies, and you spin one up as VDI in a cloud.... how do you access it?

BRRABill

@scottalanmiller said:

If you have five desktops, and one dies, and you spin one up as VDI in a cloud.... how do you access it?

Originally I thought about using a Datto device in there. The entry level device I was thinking of does not have ability to spin up a local VM ... only in the cloud. But withiin minutes I would have a exact copy of their machine in the cloud. You can access it through the Datto device using the same IP if the local device is still there. (Wouldn't be, say, in the case of a total disaster.) This is great if the local desktop is sharing files. Or you could access it anywhere online using the IP they give you and RDP.

So in tax season, the client could keep rolling while you fixed their machine. Run out to Best Buy, buy a new machine, and do a BMR. They are down for only minutes.

The issue with this (aside from apparent licensing issues) is cost. Their rates for 7 year retention are insance. You export an image every month, but that is a lot of manual work. That's what originally brought me to this thread. To find a better way of doing this.

scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said:

The issue with this (aside from apparent licensing issues) is cost. Their rates for 7 year retention are insance. You export an image every month, but that is a lot of manual work. That's what originally brought me to this thread. To find a better way of doing this.

Yeah, image backups are for rapid recovery, not long term retention. Use local storage and file backups for that!

scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said:

So in tax season, the client could keep rolling while you fixed their machine. Run out to Best Buy, buy a new machine, and do a BMR. They are down for only minutes.

Why do the spin up in the cloud if you can do this, though? If you spin up in the cloud, you need a desktop from which to access the remote instance. So you are stuck until you are in a position where you could have restored to a physical machine.

All of that Datto gear is nice, but I'm not seeing a situation where you could leverage it with a VM. You'd always just restore to the new machine that you put in place, right?

scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said:

Or you could access it anywhere online using the IP they give you and RDP.

That only works if they have another desktop to work from, though. And if they do, theoretically you are ready to restore.

BRRABill

@scottalanmiller said:

That only works if they have another desktop to work from, though. And if they do, theoretically you are ready to restore.

I'd take them a laptop while I commandeered a new system for them. Or fixed the old one.

Or also this would be great if their place burned down or all machines got stolen