Hello, We currently back-up our database every day here but the tapes are being kept on-site (which only helps in the instnaces that the data is destroyed on the server and the whole bulding is not). I'd like to get some suggestions from others who have Raiser's Edge of places they have used to for off-site storage of their data. Any of your suggestions would be helpful as a place to begin! Thank you in advance, Ginelle Hewitt [Email Removed]

At one time I worked at an organization that backed up data the servers every day. The tapes were collected by Iron Mountain and stored offsite in a different city. If we wanted to retrieve data we could get a tape for the next day but that costed. If we were prepared to wait three days it would be free. However we then moved to an online backup. This is not as bandwidth consuming as it may sound. The initial backup took a while but then only data that was changed was backed up and it went quite quickly online. The plus side to this was that we did not have to wait to retrieve data and it was free to download backed up files. Feel free to contact me if you need more information. David Zeidman Development http://www.zeidman.info

I would imagine that as we need to back-up our entire database - as if it is detroyed in the building, along with the tapes, we will need the whole database to recover. I'd prefer to go with an online back-up system (rather than having someone pick it up each day or whatever time frame is specified). What are the pros & cons to pick-up versus online? How many organizations out there do one or the other and why?

This is what I put together for our Disaster Recovery Manual: Disaster Recovery Tape Backup Rotation One of the most commonly used tape rotation schemes is called GFS (Grandfather-Father-Son.) This scheme uses three sets of tapes for daily, weekly and monthly backup sets. To execute the Grandfather-Father-Son rotation scheme, we will need fifteen sets of media. The first set, Son represents daily backups. Assign four tapes as incremental daily backups and label them Monday through Thursday. These tapes will be used to perform daily incremental backups and can be reused weekly on the day that they are labeled. This tape will be taken home by Michael Sherman or, in order, Brad Swafford, Mary Jo Migues or Beth Moore daily. A second set of up to five weekly tapes, called Father, is used to perform full backups on the day in which you do not perform a daily incremental backup. This media set should be labeled Week 1 through Week 5 and can be reused monthly on the day matching its label. This tape will be stored in a safety deposit box at Colonial Bank. The final set of six tapes, called Grandfather, is used to perform full backups on the last business day of each month and can be reused quarterly. This will include a separate tape for a full system backup. Prior to storing the Grandfather set in a safety deposit box at Colonial Bank we will perform a restore to test the validity of the data. 4 Son (daily) 5 Father (weekly) 6 Grandfather (monthly – reused quarterly) 15 Tapes Total Michael J. Sherman Donor Services Manager The Boys & Girls Clubs of Tampa Bay 1307 N. MacDill Avenue Tampa, FL 33607 813.769-7533 [Email Removed]

My personal opinion is that tapes are an outdated way to preform backups. They are very suseptible to becoming corrupt, softwares become antiquated fast and problems with tapes are more expensive to fix than with other types of media, specifically hard drives, which are what we use, as they are MUCH faster, way more cost effective these days, and its 100 times easier to access and transfer the data.

Michael- Your backup solution is pretty much the classic and is pretty solid. However, I'd recommend a few changes. First, if your full backup fits on a single tape, why not change your incremental backup to a full? This dramatically increases your redundancy, allows you to do a full restore from a single tape, and if a tape goes bad (which they do), you reduce your risk to a single day. Failing that, I would replace the incremental with a differential backup. I hate incremental backups because they only backup whatever has changed since your last incremental backup. Differential backups will cover everything that's changed since your last FULL backup. This, again, gives you added protection against a tape going bad. For RE, it probably doesn't make a big difference since the database files, by their nature, will be updated every day and will trigger your incremental or differential backup. Mitch Mitch Gibbs Director, IS Advocate Charitable Foundation

But you still need a procedure to tape the drives off-site. We copy our database files to a hard drive, and then back up to tape from there and rotate the various tapes off campus. Some tape drives are very fast - but speed shouldn't be the main issue. Barbara Prine Kingswood-Oxford School

My suggestion would be to 1. Implement a Grandfather - father - son rotation scheme and do full backups of the OS, Blackbaud software and the database to all tapes. 2. Setup a Disaster Recovery procedure that will allow you to restore the server OS using a CD or floppy, use a new CD or floppy for each DR set, and create these on a regular basis. Possibly look at a hardware independent DR - this allows you to restore to a new server. Store the DR media offsite. 3. Have a staff member who lives a reasonable distance from the building take the father and son tapes offsite daily. Define a security guideline for the storing of these tapes to prevent theft, fire damage etc. 4. Store the Grandfather tapes in an offsite storage facility designed for storing tape media that has a controlled environment and do not rotate these tapes, use them once (if funds allow). 5. Test all the media by doing a restore. i.e. Monday - Thursday tapes monthly (one tape a week), Friday tapes after every backup and monthly tapes after every backup. 6. Store copies of all the software on the server and its OS installation media offsite. 7. Regularly monitor the server’s event logs for problems with the server. 8. Monitor the backup logs daily, and regularly check that the backup scripts are backing everything up. 9. Familiarise yourself with the procedures required for restoring the server, software, database and files. Practise restoring the database, Blackbaud provides support articles explaining how to do this. 10. Tape, CD and floppy media to not last forever, introduce new media into the routine on a fairly regular basis. I would like to add that no single procedure is useable by everyone and is governed by skill levels and resources, you need to identify what best practise are and then accommodate this into a procedure that your organisation can implement and maintain. Make sure that you inform senior management, and they except the procedure and are aware of where the vulnerabilities, only funding inhibits a perfect backup and DR procedure so if you have to compromise make sure that this is known. [i]--- Edited at 9/18/2006 9:40:06 PM by Rhys Gardiner[/i]

We, too, still use backup tapes and just speaking to the question of "where" to store them, we use a safe deposit box at our bank. This works because we make daily deposits (due to the nature of one of our programs), and we are based downtown and within walking distance to the bank. However, we have also been approached by our computer services provider (a third party - no budget for an internal department!) about their ability to conduct backups, monitor and periodically do test restoration checks remotely from their offices. This is enticing because of the limited need for additional work on our part, but you have to have a high level of confidence in your provider to do this and it does come at a price. For now, we're still backing up and taking the tapes to the bank. Diana Grover [Email Removed]

in addendum to my hard drive rant... you can then easily upload your backup to space on the computer that hosts your website. website space is pretty cheap these days, and uploading to a directory structure on your website is a fast and easy and grandfatherable way to get it all done without tapes and without someone taking the data somewhere,.,.