Backup System For 5 PC SMB

BRRABill

Using enterprise server backup software, which on its own is a good thing but huge overkill for desktops, is leading you towards odd thinking as well. Those vendors had no intention of their products being used for backing up desktops. Sure you can, it works and they are happy to support that but fundamentally no thought is put into getting that working because it's not an intended or assumed use case. So all of their processes and features are designed around the intention of there being server licenses involved.

But server licenses have the same issue, no? Can you move a server open license from one machine to another? I know you can't do it with OEM.

Chris

@BRRABill what I posted was for Windows desktop OS, not server.

scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said:

I just don't get the concept of having to buy a whole new server license if my motherboard dies.

You don't have to, for anything. You can always replace your motherboard.

scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said:

Most of my thinking has been on the server level.

This is all desktop though Gotta pull away and think about a five user, all desktop workgroup and system design around small business, not big business. Requires a different approach than when you have big businesses with centralized authentication, storage, etc.

SOHO setups lean to very simple setups. Always an exception, of course, but in general.

Dashrender

@scottalanmiller said:

it is only OEM licenses that cannot do a BMR recovery.

OEM can BMR to the original hardware it was sold with, but not to replacement hardware, technically not even identical replacement hardware.

scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said:

But server licenses have the same issue, no? Can you move a server open license from one machine to another? I know you can't do it with OEM.

Of course, server licenses are totally mobile. Everyone does that all of the time. If you couldn't, you couldn't have things like VMware or HyperV clusters or load balancing or failover.

BRRABill

@Chris said:

@BRRABill what I posted was for Windows desktop OS, not server.

What are the rules for a server OS?

For OEM licenses, and also spinning up a VM for disaster recovery purposes. Are you saying that is allowed?

Thanks!

scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said:

And I was certainly told that you can call Microsoft and explain the situation and often they will reissue the license, which is in direct contradiction to what @Chris has said.

No, actually it agrees with it 100%. If you can convince Microsoft to grant you a new license that suggests extremely strongly that you did, indeed, not have a license for what you wanted to do and needed to get a new one.

Now, I've never heard of Microsoft ever granting a new license in that case. Literally, never heard of anyone pulling that off. But it is not impossible, just unlikely. Banking on it, though, would be very foolish.

BRRABill

@scottalanmiller said:

Of course, server licenses are totally mobile. Everyone does that all of the time. If you couldn't, you couldn't have things like VMware or HyperV clusters or load balancing or failover.

I was under the impression that OEM server licenses were not mobile.

BRRABill

@scottalanmiller said:

Banking on it, though, would be very foolish.

That's why I am here. To not look foolish!

scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said:

I was under the impression that OEM server licenses were not mobile.

OEM = Not Mobile. Anytime OEM comes up in Microsoft terms it means "stuck to the hardware."

OEM Server licenses are not something you would ever buy or talk about, they simply should not exist. When you talk server licensing, no one means OEM. It's a standard best practice to never have OEM servers and no serious business does.

BRRABill

@scottalanmiller said:

OEM Server licenses are not something you would ever buy or talk about, they simply should not exist. When you talk server licensing, no one means OEM. It's a standard best practice to never have OEM servers and no serious business does.

That is definitely something I agree with.

scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said:

For OEM licenses, and also spinning up a VM for disaster recovery purposes. Are you saying that is allowed?

Server (outside of OEM) does exactly what you would expect. You can move to different hardware in a DR scenario once every 90 days. With certain SA licensing I believe that you can move as often as you like.

Dashrender

So getting back to the OP, where are you leaning on this backup solution?

scottalanmiller

My take is that given the revelations about the intent of the cloud option and now understanding how either costly it would be to go with VDI as well as how long it would take to pull down a back, that either local NAS or local AetherStore storage of backups is probably ideal.

scottalanmiller

Things that I would consider:

Separate the OS from the data in backups. This makes backups smaller and faster both to make and to restore and, of course, reduces the needed storage for the backups over time allowing you to retain more of them.
Standardize on an OS version and image with software packages.
Get VL imaging rights.
Create a base installation image to use, pop it onto DVD and have it ready to rebuild. This will get you to a clean "base" very rapidly with your OS, drivers and all standard applications ready to go.
Do a file restore of data.

scottalanmiller

As far as NAS vs. AetherStore. Both work fine here. If you have a stable office where you can put a NAS, the NAS requires a hardware purchase, uses power, will need a shelf on which to live, etc. Not a big deal. Requires the purchase of at minimum a two bay NAS unit and two hard drives for RAID 1. Possibly more depending on your capacity and performance needs.

AetherStore requires no hardware, only software, and uses your existing drive capacity for redundancy. This requires that there be excess storage available on the network (you can always move to larger internal drives or add secondary ones for this purpose) and more or less needs you to have your systems remain online so that they can replicate the storage. If you have static desktops, this is likely the better bet for this scenario.

BRRABill

I am stil a little befuddled by the fact you cannot virtual boot a backup desktop image. Literally every product on the market that does this for desktops (I've given 4 examples of leading products below) sell this as a feature. Are you saying it is all a scam, considering these are desktop backup products? Or that each should have an asterisk (none of which does) that says "this feature only available if you separately get a virtual license for the machine you are backing up"?

Not that I do not believe this group (or of course the source, @chris), but it just seems like maybe I'm not explaining myself properly. I now consider this group like my wife. never wrong.

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scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said:

I am stil a little befuddled by the fact you cannot virtual boot a backup desktop image. Literally every product on the market that does this for desktops (I've given 4 examples of leading products below) sell this as a feature.

None of them do it "for desktops." Not in the way that you describe. You are completely outside of anyone's intended usage. It would never have occurred to me that someone would even try this.

scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said:

Are you saying it is all a scam, considering these are desktop backup products? Or that each should have an asterisk (none of which does) that says "this feature only available if you separately get a virtual license for the machine you are backing up"?

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?