Backup System For 5 PC SMB
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Here's a thought -Assuming all 5 computers are identical, make a baseline image (though legally that might be touch, it would mean having a Open License copy of Windows to create images of, because you can't legally image OEMs to any machine but the one it came with). Deploy that image to all computer, and save all the data on the NAS. Backup the NAS and have a DVD/USB stick with a copy of the image on it. Update the Image yearly.
When you have a failure, virus infection, whatever - simply restore the image, do a bit of configuring, connect to the NAS and finished.
If the whole NAS dies, you've been backing that up to the cloud, get a new NAS and start the recovery.
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@scottalanmiller said:
What is sent TO the cloud is of minor concern. The issue is how do you restore quickly if you have to pull down a massive image of your systems instead of only the data?
Ah, I see what you are getting at.
Well, the only time you would need something like that would be in the case of a total catastrophe locally. (Or everything gets stolen.) I'd hope the solution includes some sort of way to spin up the image in the cloud. Again, like a Datto or the premium service ShadowProtect offers.
But I think what you are saying is, the risk/reward versus price to a 5-PC SMB just isn't worth it.
One of the options I had thought about (and someone mentioned) was one of these NAS devices that can replicate itself. I had been looking at the Synology which someone mentioned.
You have ShadowProtect (or Veeam) running the backups to the NAS on-site, which replicates, say, to my office (or the owner's home or whatever) so we could just grab that and bring it over.
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@BRRABill said:
Well, the only time you would need something like that would be in the case of a total catastrophe locally. (Or everything gets stolen.) I'd hope the solution includes some sort of way to spin up the image in the cloud. Again, like a Datto or the premium service ShadowProtect offers.
Well okay, this has its limitations. Only a few specific services offer this, most do not. This adds a lot of cost, of course. And you need to check to see if VDI is covered, because as desktops these are not covered by any normal licensing and you will need VDI licensing both for spinning up the VMs and for any devices that will be used to connect to them. VDI isn't a simple process. My guess is that those vendors (Datto actually uses ShadowProtect so that's the same solution twice more or less) leave all licensing liability up to you, which sucks as that is super expensive.
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@BRRABill said:
One of the options I had thought about (and someone mentioned) was one of these NAS devices that can replicate itself. I had been looking at the Synology which someone mentioned.
All of the cost effective small NAS units use Linux under the hood and RSYNC is the tool used across the board for this. You'll find the same capability in every small device.
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@BRRABill said:
You have ShadowProtect (or Veeam) running the backups to the NAS on-site, which replicates, say, to my office (or the owner's home or whatever) so we could just grab that and bring it over.
Exactly. And you can restore over the WAN if necessary and 99.99% of the time you'd do a restore from the local NAS, not a distant one, for super fast restores.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Well okay, this has its limitations. Only a few specific services offer this, most do not. This adds a lot of cost, of course. And you need to check to see if VDI is covered, because as desktops these are not covered by any normal licensing and you will need VDI licensing both for spinning up the VMs and for any devices that will be used to connect to them. VDI isn't a simple process. My guess is that those vendors (Datto actually uses ShadowProtect so that's the same solution twice more or less) leave all licensing liability up to you, which sucks as that is super expensive.
Yeah in my testing of this, licensing becomes an issue. I have not had to officially do it yet (I worked around it with an OEM key workaround in testing) but am assured MS will help in a disaster recovery scenario.
You are right it's basically the same solution, twice. Though it's interesting that they are pretty different. Nice technology, though.
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@BRRABill said:
Yeah in my testing of this, licensing becomes an issue. I have not had to officially do it yet (I worked around it with an OEM key workaround in testing) but am assured MS will help in a disaster recovery scenario.
Yes, MS will help you pay the high cost of moving to VDI licensing which includes $100 per year fee for every device that will look at the VDI instance. MS will not help you work around VDI licensing, of course. Especially if you built VDI into your planning. That you are relying on VDI as part of the plan, you will most certainly have to go through a licensing process for it.
But yes, MS is not going to try to hold you up. They literally run for that licensing money so they will do everything that they can to help.
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@scottalanmiller said:
But yes, MS is not going to try to hold you up. They literally run for that licensing money so they will do everything that they can to help.
I was under the impression they let it slide in disaster recovery scenarios, but I am not 100% sure about that. I'm talking about BMR, not VDI. You're only using it until your get the actual server/desktop restored.
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@BRRABill said:
I was under the impression they let it slide in disaster recovery scenarios, but I am not 100% sure about that. I'm talking about BMR, not VDI. You're only using it until your get the actual server/desktop restored.
I've never heard that suggested. What is done for server DR and desktop DR are very different things.
Systems like Datto and StorageCraft that are hosted and doing "in the cloud" recovery are always virtual and that means VDI every time with MS desktop products. So no BMR option going that route until you fail back on premises. So you'd be looking at VDI for the situation and products that you described.
Are you sure that you've heard this referenced to VDI / desktop OSes and not just to servers (where VDI does not exist.)
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@BRRABill said:
You're only using it until your get the actual server/desktop restored.
VDI doesn't exist for servers, so anything that blends the two at the discussion level would not imply anything for VDI.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Are you sure that you've heard this referenced to VDI / desktop OSes and not just to servers (where VDI does not exist.)
It was actually in reference to a BMR. I'll have to try to virtually boot a desktop I have backed up and see what happens. That'll be for another day.
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Are you sure that you've heard this referenced to VDI / desktop OSes and not just to servers (where VDI does not exist.)
It was actually in reference to a BMR. I'll have to try to virtually boot a desktop I have backed up and see what happens. That'll be for another day.
Oh sure, BMR they will likely let you slide. But that's not what we were discussing
The strategy that you had that I was talking about is a VDI strategy. If you drop the VDI strategy and go to a BMR one, sure the VDI issues will not apply. -
@scottalanmiller said:
Oh sure, BMR they will likely let you slide. But that's not what we were discussing
The strategy that you had that I was talking about is a VDI strategy. If you drop the VDI strategy and go to a BMR one, sure the VDI issues will not apply.One of the selling points of these systems is being able to spin up a virtual copy of your machine at any time. Datto even spins one up every night to provide a screenshot that it is indeed booting. I got the impresion you were thining that counted as VDI. It does not?
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Oh sure, BMR they will likely let you slide. But that's not what we were discussing
The strategy that you had that I was talking about is a VDI strategy. If you drop the VDI strategy and go to a BMR one, sure the VDI issues will not apply.One of the selling points of these systems is being able to spin up a virtual copy of your machine at any time. Datto even spins one up every night to provide a screenshot that it is indeed booting. I got the impresion you were thining that counted as VDI. It does not?
I bet strictly speaking that it does count as VDI.
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Oh sure, BMR they will likely let you slide. But that's not what we were discussing
The strategy that you had that I was talking about is a VDI strategy. If you drop the VDI strategy and go to a BMR one, sure the VDI issues will not apply.One of the selling points of these systems is being able to spin up a virtual copy of your machine at any time. Datto even spins one up every night to provide a screenshot that it is indeed booting. I got the impresion you were thining that counted as VDI. It does not?
If you are using Windows desktops instead of Windows server ANY VM needs VDI licensing, no exceptions. What you have just described is exactly the VDI I was mentioning above. This is not BMR, it is VDI. So you have huge licensing overhead required here, both in money and in effort to track and maintain.
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@Dashrender said:
I bet strictly speaking that it does count as VDI.
Even very, very loosely. It's easy, answer these questions....
- Is it a Windows desktop OS (Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 or 10?)
- Is it virtualized?
- Is it anywhere but on your local desktop?
If those three are true, it's VDI. This is very clearly VDI.
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I thought you could install a desktop OS as a VM on a desktop OS without a VDI license. Think XP Mode on Win7. Is that not the case?
But, the moment that you vituralize a desktop OS on a VM server like ESXi or Hyper-V you have VDI, and I suppose if you do it on a server with something like VirtualBox, I'm not sure where that goes?
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@Dashrender said:
I thought you could install a desktop OS as a VM on a desktop OS without a VDI license. Think XP Mode on Win7. Is that not the case?
Not as stated, no. That would violate question 3 unless it is your local desktop. Once you access from RDP, VNC, etc. you are remote and back to VDI.
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@Dashrender said:
But, the moment that you vituralize a desktop OS on a VM server like ESXi or Hyper-V you have VDI
Which is what he is doing here. He's virtualizing desktops on a server.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I thought you could install a desktop OS as a VM on a desktop OS without a VDI license. Think XP Mode on Win7. Is that not the case?
Not as stated, no. That would violate question 3 unless it is your local desktop. Once you access from RDP, VNC, etc. you are remote and back to VDI.
aww.. posts crossed in the ether.
