Is this possible with a True Image Product?

Hi folks:

I'm looking to setup a backup solution for a client with just two offices. I'm going to set it up so that all their important data, including an MSDE application, is on one WinXP pro machine (they aren't big enough to need Windows 2003 Server). I'd like to be able to backup that machine to a secure zone partition on a regular basis, and also automatically either send a copy of that backup to a machine at their other office, or somehow then backup and/or mirror the secure zone partition to their other office. The goal here is to keep one copy on site in the secure zone partition for easy restore in case something bad software wise happens to the machine, and keep a copy off site in case something bad in a physical sense happens to the machine itself, or the mirrored drives (I'm assuming I can have the secured zone on a RAID 1 drive) such that the secure zone partition is destroyed. This would have to work in such a way that the software would have to manage the disk space on the machine at the other site (i.e. deleting old backup files, etc.) just like it would the secure zone on the machine being backed up. Their two offices are connected with just your basic small business cable or DSL service, so the upload speed isn't likely to be more than 1 mbps, which means that this can't be transferring many gigabytes of information all the time. I was figuring on doing the backup once a week on Friday night, so if the transmission to the other site took most of the weekend, that would be OK, as long as it had some method of checkpointing so that it didn't have to start from the beginning if the connection got broken for some reason. Also, as this is a small operation I can't propose something that will be grossly expensive to implement.

Any suggestions?


mudtoe

 

Just a quick steer away from your Secure Zone concept.
One of the features of the secure zone is that an image it it cannot be transferred to another location.
It can be mounted and explored and files and folders can be copied from it but that is not what you want.

 

OK. Thanks. I'd be OK if the image were created on one of the "regular" partitions of the hard drive of the system being backed up, even if I have to create a separate partion for that purpose, just as long as the product can manage the migration of the data to the remote site, and can delete old copies of backups, both locally and at the remote site, when the disk space gets full.


mudtoe

 

I agree about the need to test the restore strategies. Most of the people I deal with (small businesses/offices) have either IDE or SATA drives in the machines they need backed up. I have an extra IDE and SATA drive that I use to test restore procedures (put my drive in client's machine and run restore to it), rather than risking the source drive testing out the procedures.

This is the first time I'm going to try do to a fully automated solution for a small office. In the past I've just had clients manually do a backup once a week, or once a month to tape or DVD, possibly supplemented with daily incremental backups to the same hard disk if the volume of change warrants, and of course after a while they quit doing them on a regular basis, or they lose the tapes and DVDs. I'm hoping I can come up with a procedure that works well enough in an automated fashion, so that I can use it in all these small office situations. Even if the client doesn't have multiple offices, most have a broadband connection at home to which I could transmit the backups. The key is that the solution has to operate without manual intervention, and it can't cost a lot. I know I could get a high end backup product targeted at larger businesses which would address all these needs, but those all cost more than my typical client would be willing to pay.


mudtoe