Backing up multiple clients to one server with minimal effort...

seamus

OK, a little background;

I recently took charge of an office network. It's a large company, but I exclusively look after their head office. It comprises between 250-300 PCs, and around 15 servers that are of any interest to me (there are loads of other servers for other purposes that I'm not concerned about). The place is a bit of a shambles. I have to bring it from a "Sure plug it in there and if he can get his email he's grand" network, to a properly managed, secure, Active Directory driven, standard image, corporate network.

What I'm asking about here is backup (clearly, from the thread title). I now know the pain of having hundred of users using Outlook and POP mail. PST files have become the bane of my life. Basically, everybody stores everything on their local machines. PSTs, critical company documents, the only known copy of drivers in existence, etc. Part of my plan is to provide network storage to every user, mapped in automatically, but it's unlikely any of them will even think that uploading existing stuff is a good idea.

So I need a way to remotely manage scheduled mass backups. For every machine I want to be able to pull (or push) every file ending in .pst, .doc, .xls, .ppt, etc as well as certain folders, onto a network share. I want to be able to schedule this to take place quite regularly (once a week maybe), and I want to be able to get this information without having to load tapes. I have 2TB of RAID storage standing by

I can't distribute anything by Group Policy. Not yet anyway. As luck would have it, I am planning a major blitz which will involve a personal visit to each and every machine in the building, and running through a huge list of things to standarise it. So I'm going to use this opportunity to add in any necessary background services (e.g. VNC server) to each and every machine. So suggestions such as "Install/Configure X on every machine" aren't silly or unreasonable.

Anyone?

SouperComputer

Surely having roaming profiles\exchange server would be the easiest option?

Then you just have to back up the server for the userprofiles, PST's documents etc etc

Or am I overlooking somthing from your post?

If you mean backing up the data on the machines for the purpose of implementing exchange at a later date, what about using a bootable Linux CD to slap all the user profiles on the file server via Samba?

seamus

Well, indeed we will be switching to Exchange at a later date.

The other problem I forgot to mention is that not all of the files are under people's profiles. Many have folders in the root of C:\ marked "JOHN'S FOLDER - DO NOT DELETE", which contain everything.

Roaming profiles are something which have been mentioned a few times, but for whatever reason I'm a little tentative about going that route. I've personally found them finnicky and troublesome in the past.

SouperComputer

oh, holy god, have fun backing all that up.

I think getting the users to do the work for you, ie deating up a proceedure to have all their stuff in a central location and then make the bakups from there.

Ive found profiles to be okay, just dont let the profile get too big. Ensure the users dont keep too much crap in their "my docs" and "encourage" them to use their mapped drive as storage. Keeping temp files etc cleared goes a long way too.

Capt'n Midnight

You can use RMTSHARE to share folders using a batch file. Easy enough to generate a share for each user, and then map a drive in the logon script to \\Server\%username%

Main thing to let users know is that you take no responsibility for stuff on their local machines, only "network drives" get backed up. Set the expectation, network drive being your problem , local drives being their problem. Remind them that it's unlikely to loose several server drives at the same time but if the server dies you just grab last nights tape, but if the PC dies it's data recovery at a cost of many hundreds and you may not get any data back.

I've used XCOPY c:\*.Do? \\server\c$\%computername%\*.* /D /S /H /R /C /Y /M in the past to pull files across from a local machine to a server ( the /D /M means you only copy newer/changed files so the first time is by far the slowest. - RSYNC / ROBOCOPY are other alternatives. )

use multiple xcopy lines for
*.XL*
*.?ST
*.BA?

etc. - you will miss lots of files but you get many docs to START with.

OST files are the way to go with exchange - use exmerge to dump them to PST's so you have the best of both worlds when it comes to revover.

What's that setting for the default drive when you go Save ?

seamus

I think you're both right guys. I would be better off telling the users to back up their own data rather than trying to do it for them (ultimately I'd miss something). That the I.T. Department isn't their nanny seems to be a foreign concept in this place though.

My primary concern is the PST files. Some users have up to 2GB (and a couple go over the limit and lose a few hundred MBs of mail and a few years off my life) of mail in their PSTs, and unlike in other places I've worked in, I can count on one had the amount of users who know what a PST file is.

I think the best route may be to provide a dedicated file share for PSTs and map it in as a separate drive via the logon script. Then when I do my blitz, I can dump all PSTs on the users' machines to their relevant drive, and map Outlook to them. Thus, in theory, all mail is backed up and anything else is not my problem. Then when Exchange comes along, moving someone onto a new machine isn't remotely the painful experience it is now.

I think I need to write a substantial plan-of-attack document.

LoGiE

Well as your using group policy the simple thing to do would be the create personnel folders (H: ) and departmental folders (G: ) on your file server then create a script to automatically map the drives. Then when your calling round to each PC point the "My documents" at the H drive. If people have been using there local My documents it will tranfer them to the network automatically.
Where I work we simply told all the users that all information must be stored on there Personnel drive or they would lose if the disk died. They quickly got the hang of it and some of these people had no clue about windows. As for your mail moving to exchange as soon as possible is the only sane solution. 2 gb of mail stored locally is ridiculious!

Some other quick things...
Why install VNC when windows has it's own excellent remote desktop?
Good time to set up a print server while your visiting each machine?

seamus

LoGiE wrote:

Why install VNC when windows has it's own excellent remote desktop?

Windows' Remote Desktop client is single-user only on XP. So if I log in to troubleshoot, the other person gets logged out. VNC offers the shared session solution. That said, I'll probably go with Dameware since it's generally a good remote management package and allows for on-demand remote server installation.

Good time to set up a print server while your visiting each machine?

Yep. Print server is set up and ready to go. Just have to migrate everyone over

Sleipnir

The problem with using psts on a server as a means of archiving is that you will never have enough space. e.g. users's may decide that instead of occasionally moving relevant to a pst on the server, they set up a rule which copies every communication to it. End result - 50 gigs of emails mostly containing "what are you up to this weekend?"
2GB woth of psts? Try one of my users mate, 15GB. The top 10 users in my place have about 64GB worth stored. Your two terabytes will, in two years, not seem so vast!

Remapping the My Documents folder as above may be a good way to go alright as long as the user's understand that their hilarious mpg's, jpgs won't be staying. Also, if they don't save their stuff there, I.T. can't be held responsible if it's lost. That sort of policy has to be written, and approved from the top.

You've got your work cut out for you mate!

Sleipnir

I would recommend Dameware also purely because of it's remote installation options.

SouperComputer

you could be a nazi and enforce quotas too

seamus

Sleipnir wrote:

That sort of policy has to be written, and approved from the top.

Yes, policies. I never thought I would actually find myself lamenting the non-existence of policies, but here I am.

Cheers for the feedback guys.

WizZard

I took over the same type of network a couple of months ago, much smaller than that though. SO I do know what you are going through.

I went with the Nazi approach and emailed everybody a document with new policy (this is important! ) and basically told them that they would be losing all data if it was not backed up to their newly assigned network share.
I am currently reimaging the machines and I just go with the line that if it's not backed up already, it's gone. I advocate "tough love"

This may not work for you in such a large network, and YMMV etc.

Good luck anyway.

Cake Fiend

Yikes. I agree with the official policy thing for a start - you should get the MD/Dept. Head/whoever to take the opportunity of an IT rehaul to overhaul/install an official policy, both to make your life easier and to cover your ass in the future. On a network that size, the Nazi approach is the only solution that won't have you running like a nursery school teacher, cleaning up everyone else's poo!