Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options
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@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
So the data has to stream out to the VPS, and then back in to whatever storage.
Right, in the scenario opposite of the one being discussed here. That's the "not an option scenario", instead of the "scenario I'm asking about".
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@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
Where as the simple and "cost-effective" system would be to just have each of this separate systems send in an email once a day or week as the backups finish so you as an MSP can manage it.
No, emailing status is never a viable option. Because it's when an email "doesn't happen", ergo no notification, is when something is wrong. So that's never okay in production. Might be okay when monitoring a single system, but not hundreds.
No, a central console is the only logical and effective scenario. Exactly what I asked about. That's why I asked specifically about products that do the sensible thing as any that send data out or do email or lack a central console simply don't work.
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@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
It keeps the data local ( a critical key for any customer ) as "Backups always need to be local, for any business. Cloud backups are almost always a fallback scenario".
Right, but so does the thing I asked about. Except my ask meets the need rather than simply not addressing the problem.
Your solution is the same as saying "ignore the problem and don't address it", even when what it takes to address it well is practically nothing.
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@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
So the data has to stream out to the VPS, and then back in to whatever storage.
Right, in the scenario opposite of the one being discussed here. That's the "not an option scenario", instead of the "scenario I'm asking about".
So you're asking what MSP central backup options exist (and are FOSS)?
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@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
So you're asking what MSP central backup options exist (and are FOSS)?
No, to repeat the original question...
I'm asking if a central management or non-central backups exists, in any form.
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@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
non-central backups exists
UrBackup!
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The only way that UrBackup is non-central is that it's Non-Central to the MSP. It's "global" for the customer as it's just another managed service (be it from internal IT or an MSP such as NTG).
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@Obsolesce said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
I've never come across that specific need to require locally attached USB disks in with the backup solution's DB.
Doens't need to be in the DB. You can know if a backup is scheduled, happened, or was successful without sending details about it outside of the network. Doing so would be okay, but it's not needed to control the backups.
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@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
non-central backups exists
UrBackup!
But not with local backups, so don't bring it up as obviously it can't be part of this conversation.
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@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
non-central backups exists
UrBackup!
But not with local backups, so don't bring it up as obviously it can't be part of this conversation.
Local to the customers site I assume you mean. Which the real question is, can a solution like UrBackup write to something on premise at multiple "client" site.
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@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
The only way that UrBackup is non-central is that it's Non-Central to the MSP. It's "global" for the customer as it's just another managed service (be it from internal IT or an MSP such as NTG).
UrBackup can be central if the data is also central, or have local data if the solution is local. So it can meet either requirement, but never both at once.
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@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
non-central backups exists
UrBackup!
But not with local backups, so don't bring it up as obviously it can't be part of this conversation.
Local to the customers site I assume you mean. Which the real question is, can a solution like UrBackup write to something on premise at multiple "client" site.
Local to the device, not just the site. Local filesystem support is a requirement.
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@Obsolesce said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
Those were always adhoc and done via Veeam Free (or Windows Backup) and not managed, just scheduled with email notifications set for failures.
Right. Those mechanisms are perfect for the backup, but lack the console. A console for those products would do the trick.
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@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
UrBackup can be central if the data is also central, or have local data if the solution is local. So it can meet either requirement, but never both at once.
UrBackup can do both at the same time, just not at the scale you are looking to use it. So the real question is "What managed backup services can NTG offer/resale etc that works across multiple customers and writes to the clients local storage medium"
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@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
UrBackup can do both at the same time, just not at the scale you are looking to use it.
How? Even for two sites, I don't think UrBackup can do.
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@Obsolesce said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
But always pushed for no local backup, and to use modern means of working file storage (ODfB, Google Drive File Stream / Backup and Sync, etc).
Except that rarely works in the real world. SMB clients rarely have enough bandwidth to take an online backup, let alone to depend on that for a restore. That's only viable as a "sometimes" secondary backup target. Primary almost always has to be local. Restores need to be hours, not days or weeks.
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For anyone struggling to visualize what a common need this is....
Imagine this super common scenario:
Tiny customer with a single server, no other hardware. They need to take a backup of their data and be able to restore it in a reasonable amount of time for most problems, primarily hard drive failure. Their WAN is slow and would take too long to consider for a normal backup, if it is possible at all. The only option is to back up to a USB hard drive. But they can't afford to have someone spend 15+ minutes every day logging in to verify that the backup has worked, but they need the backup to work. If they can do a WAN backup, it's only for "last resort" and restores would take so long that they can't do that until all else is lost. (Our example this weekend, an online backup would have taken them around two months to do and would have shut down their Internet for those two months.)
This isn't an "off the wall" scenario, this is something like 50%+ of all American businesses.
Now sure, if they followed my DevOps Backups approaches they could protect themselves that way, except for their file server. When you have 300GB of images to back up, there is very little that you can do to speed that up.
So to address the data needs, it needs to be a USB attached drive. We can complain that this isn't "enterprise" all we want, but it's more enterprise than a solution that they can't afford, justify, or make work. Is it ideal, no, but not every business can justify a nice NAS to get over having a USB drive, and a NAS will rarely provide any significantly better protection than a USB drive (both are just network attached storage of different sorts.)
And to address the monitoring needs, we need a central console that can verify and alert without depending on email from the same device that may have failed.
Basically we need to treat the backups at the customer the same way that we typically do RMM, AntiVirus, Remote Access and other functions. All of the risk already exists from those covering the same bases. They just seem to all lack the ability to kick off and monitor a backup.
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@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@Obsolesce said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
But always pushed for no local backup, and to use modern means of working file storage (ODfB, Google Drive File Stream / Backup and Sync, etc).
Except that rarely works in the real world. SMB clients rarely have enough bandwidth to take an online backup, let alone to depend on that for a restore. That's only viable as a "sometimes" secondary backup target. Primary almost always has to be local. Restores need to be hours, not days or weeks.
It depends on the data. I thought we were talking about user devices though. If this is for servers, you're not going to find anything because nobody is going to create and maintain functionality like this barely anyone would or should use. Even in SMBs I worked for in the past, it was extremely rare for anyone to on board with having USB drives dangling from the servers.
And if is actually is for user devices, read up more in Google drive file stream and backup and sync. File stream works online while backup and sync is just that. If something like that wouldn't work for this use case because of bandwidth constraints and/or data size, then you're stuck again.
I don't know your actual intentions, is it MSP Backup like Dustin was saying? I don't know what you're planning, and all the details, but this seems like a pretty special request. Something doesn't seem right.
Edit, spoke too soon, just seen your above post and reading it now.
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@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
Tiny customer with a single server, no other hardware. They need to take a backup of their data and be able to restore it in a reasonable amount of time for most problems, primarily hard drive failure. Their WAN is slow and would take too long to consider for a normal backup, if it is possible at all. The only option is to back up to a USB hard drive. But they can't afford to have someone spend 15+ minutes every day logging in to verify that the backup has worked, but they need the backup to work. If they can do a WAN backup, it's only for "last resort" and restores would take so long that they can't do that until all else is lost. (Our example this weekend, an online backup would have taken them around two months to do and would have shut down their Internet for those two months.)
Rclone is command line driven, super simple and works on the LAN (to a local storage) and as a secondary can backup to cloud as well.
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@Obsolesce said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
If this is for servers, you're not going to find anything because nobody is going to create and maintain functionality like this barely anyone would or should use.
This seems odd. Who wouldn't want this functionality in the SMB space?
