Understanding 3-2-1 backup rule and son/father/grandfather model backups.

openit

Hi All,

I am trying to understand 3-2-1 backup rule, son/father/gf model backups etc. to make a better Backup strategy in our company.

Want to understand better about 3-2-1 rule and son/father/grandfather model or daily/weekly/monthly/yearly etc. backups

3-2-1 Backup :

3 - Three Copies of Data --> One Origina Data (lets say File Server Data) and two other copies.

2 - Different Types of Storage Media --> Any of two from DVD, Hard Drive, Cloud, NAS etc.

1 - Offsite [ keeping one copy of data out of three to offsite location].

Son/Father/Grandfather Backup model:

I am not clear about Son/Father/Grandfather backup model. My guess is:

Son --> On-site Backup (lets say 30 days backup)
Father --> Offsite Backup of On-site Backup (lets say 12 backups - 1 year)
Grandfather --> Backup of Offsite backup (for permanent/archive backup)

Also, I just wonder if the offsite backup will be backup of Onsite backup or directly making another backup from original source to offsite.

Please assist me in understanding above points and any others points which are important for backup things.

Thanks !!

DustinB3403

The 3-2-1 rule is really a simple solution.

3 copies of your data.
2 backup mediums
1 of the backup mediums is offsite.

So the 3 copies include your production data on your servers, and then 2 backup copies. Say one copy pushed to an Onsite NAS, and the other pushed out to say Amazon S3 or BackBlaze B2. (really any off-site data storage provider)

So you have 3 copies of data, in 3 locations, and your actual backups are on different storage medium, and separated by geographic distance.

Net Runner

Here are some good explanations on the rule:
https://knowledgebase.starwindsoftware.com/explanation/the-3-2-1-backup-rule/
https://www.veeam.com/blog/the-3-2-1-0-rule-to-high-availability.html

We have a highly-available cluster based on StarWind https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-virtual-san and thus having 2 copies of data as a synchronous replica and a third copy as an on-site backup (which is part 3 of the rule). Obviously, cluster is running on primary internal storage and backups are stored on a separate NAS (wich is 2 part of the rule). And we have a VTL virtual machine https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/partners/starwind/starwindvtl/ running in Azure that hosts our offsite backups (which is part 1).

JaredBusch

@openit said in Understanding 3-2-1 backup rule and son/father/grandfather model backups.:

Son/Father/Grandfather Backup model:

This is a backup rotation nomenclature and has nothing to do with 3-2-1.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup_rotation_scheme

Dashrender

@Net-Runner said in Understanding 3-2-1 backup rule and son/father/grandfather model backups.:

Here are some good explanations on the rule:
https://knowledgebase.starwindsoftware.com/explanation/the-3-2-1-backup-rule/
https://www.veeam.com/blog/the-3-2-1-0-rule-to-high-availability.html

We have a highly-available cluster based on StarWind https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-virtual-san and thus having 2 copies of data as a synchronous replica and a third copy as an on-site backup (which is part 3 of the rule). Obviously, cluster is running on primary internal storage and backups are stored on a separate NAS (wich is 2 part of the rule). And we have a VTL virtual machine https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/partners/starwind/starwindvtl/ running in Azure that hosts our offsite backups (which is part 1).

I don't agree that StarWinds provides two copies of data - this is like saying that RAID 1 is two copies of the data. They are in real time sync, so if one become corrupted, so does the other.

Mike Davis

The grandfather - father - son piece depends on business needs. In some companies they need to be able to restore data from certain periods in time. Others only need to be able to go back a week.

Something like a print server would only need to be backed up as often as you add a printer, and if you have the last one or two working versions of it, you're probably good.

KOOLER

@Dashrender said in Understanding 3-2-1 backup rule and son/father/grandfather model backups.:

@Net-Runner said in Understanding 3-2-1 backup rule and son/father/grandfather model backups.:

Here are some good explanations on the rule:
https://knowledgebase.starwindsoftware.com/explanation/the-3-2-1-backup-rule/
https://www.veeam.com/blog/the-3-2-1-0-rule-to-high-availability.html

We have a highly-available cluster based on StarWind https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-virtual-san and thus having 2 copies of data as a synchronous replica and a third copy as an on-site backup (which is part 3 of the rule). Obviously, cluster is running on primary internal storage and backups are stored on a separate NAS (wich is 2 part of the rule). And we have a VTL virtual machine https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/partners/starwind/starwindvtl/ running in Azure that hosts our offsite backups (which is part 1).

I don't agree that StarWinds provides two copies of data - this is like saying that RAID 1 is two copies of the data. They are in real time sync, so if one become corrupted, so does the other.

This is true! Unless snapshot-based async replication is configured instead of a sync. I mean 1+1 or 2+1 instead of HA(2).

scottalanmiller

@openit said in Understanding 3-2-1 backup rule and son/father/grandfather model backups.:

I am not clear about Son/Father/Grandfather backup model. My guess is:

Son --> On-site Backup (lets say 30 days backup)

Father --> Offsite Backup of On-site Backup (lets say 12 backups - 1 year)

Grandfather --> Backup of Offsite backup (for permanent/archive backup)

No, it's not directly related to that. GF/Father/Son is about having something like yearly / monthly / daily backups.

Much of this does not apply with many modern backup methods. So be careful working from purely "catch phrases" as a guide to taking backups. They can be useful, but can be very misleading, too. And things like 3-2-1 and GF/F/S are useful for describing approaches, but are far from "best practices."

scottalanmiller

@Net-Runner said in Understanding 3-2-1 backup rule and son/father/grandfather model backups.:

We have a highly-available cluster based on StarWind https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-virtual-san and thus having 2 copies of data as a synchronous replica ...

They've covered this above, and Dash has the great example of that just being RAID and calling the copies inside of the RAID system "multiple copies." That's not accepted use of the terms. No more than having several copies of one file on a single disk is not considered a "backup" in any way.

This is the same as calling a snapshot a backup. A snapshot is just a second copy or view of the same data on the same medium as the original, so not a backup. It's still considered one copy because it is a single instance in the end.

openit

@DustinB3403 Thanks. I think, now I understand 3-2-1 backup better. Earlier I was assuming 3 backups were excluded with Original Data (say file server data), but I was wrong.

openit

@scottalanmiller Yeah, I understand, things like RAID, Snapshots within the HDD etc. are not real backups. They are just for redundancy (RAID), performance (RAID), limited restore (snapshots).

scottalanmiller

@openit said in Understanding 3-2-1 backup rule and son/father/grandfather model backups.:

@scottalanmiller Yeah, I understand, things like RAID, Snapshots within the HDD etc. are not real backups. They are just for redundancy (RAID), performance (RAID), limited restore (snapshots).

That's all that Starwind is, in that case, is RAID. It's just network RAID.