{"id":462,"date":"2012-12-21T06:52:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-21T06:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/blogs\/paul\/post\/Importance-of-where-you-store-your-backups.aspx"},"modified":"2013-01-19T11:47:47","modified_gmt":"2013-01-19T19:47:47","slug":"importance-of-where-you-store-your-backups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/importance-of-where-you-store-your-backups\/","title":{"rendered":"Importance of where you store your backups"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of weeks ago I kicked off a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/survey-where-do-you-store-your-database-backups\/\" target=\"_blank\">survey<\/a> about where you store your backups.<\/p>\n<p>Here are the results:<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/backuplocation.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The&#8217;Other&#8217; responses are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>8 x &#8216;Stored on same SAN, different LUN as databases, with off-site copies.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>6 x &#8216;Copy 1 stored on same SAN (1-2 days) for quick restore in non-physical disaster. Copy 2 stored on virtual tape device for longer term (30 day) storage. Copy 3 sent off-site on tape.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>5 x &#8216;Stored on local HDD array then OS backups nightly to off-site location.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>4 x &#8216;Stored on local SAN, replicated to remote SAN, stored to tape and then off-site.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>4 x &#8216;Stored on SAN and then backed up to off-site storage.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>4 x &#8216;Stored on SAN on same site, replicated to remote SAN. Also backed up from local SAN to tape.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>2 x &#8216;Amazon S3.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>1 x &#8216;Backed up to local Data Domain device then replicated to another Data Domain device in a remote site (no tape).&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>1 x &#8216;Certain datacenters have snapshots on Production Volumes and off-site disk backup for 3 weeks. All other centers are on-site and off-site TAPE.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>1 x &#8216;Database dumps stored on local HDD. Dump area then backed up to tape. On weekly basis tapes are then stored in fire safe for next couple of weeks.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>1 x &#8216;Data Domain and tape.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>1 x &#8216;External USB hard drive.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>1 x &#8216;Managed backup service from hosting provider.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>1 x &#8216;Mirrored to 2 different SANs.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>1 x &#8216;Snapshot on local SAN, replicated to remote SAN.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>1 x &#8216;Stored locally.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>1 x &#8216;Stored on backup database hardware via share to production server using private network connection. Backed Up to cloud nightly.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>1 x &#8216;Stored on different SAN as databases, SAN replication to offsite SAN for DR.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>1 x &#8216;Stored on local HDD of backup server, then tape, then off-site.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>1 x &#8216;Stored on NAS, then on tape, then offsite.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>1 x &#8216;Stored on SAN + replicated but also on tape and off-site.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>1 x &#8216;Stored on Seperate SAN, mirrored to DR with monthly offsite tape backups.&#8217;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Summary<\/h2>\n<p>The results are very interesting, with most people storing backups locally and off-site, which is what I recommend and what I expected the results to show.<\/p>\n<p>However, there&#8217;s really no right answer <strong>except<\/strong> that you have to have the backups to allow you to recover data within your downtime and data-loss SLAs. This doesn&#8217;t mean you <strong>have<\/strong> to have off-site backups, if your SLAs allow complete data loss and recreating the data from scratch.<\/p>\n<p>Food for thought:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>For those of you storing backups only on the same SAN as the databases, what&#8217;s your DR strategy if the entire SAN is corrupted or destroyed?<\/li>\n<li>For those of you storing backups only in the local data center, what&#8217;s your DR strategy if the data center is destroyed? (It happens &#8211; fire, flood, tornado, bomb, &#8230;)<\/li>\n<li>For those of you with backups stored off-site, how quickly can you bring the backups on-site if necessary? And what if the only data center you have is destroyed? What good are the off-site backups then?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you can&#8217;t recreate the data completely from scratch, you <strong>must<\/strong> have off-site copies of your backups.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not just about having good backups, and even having access to them when things go wrong, i&#8217;s also making sure that you can restore them and get back up and running within your downtime and data loss SLAs, no matter where you get the backups from.<\/p>\n<p>When did <strong>you<\/strong> last check that&#8217;s possible for <strong>your<\/strong> environment?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/importance-of-validating-backups\/\" target=\"_blank\">Importance of validating backups<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/importance-of-having-the-right-backups\/\" target=\"_blank\">Importance of having the right backups<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/importance-of-testing-your-disaster-recovery-plan\/\" target=\"_blank\">Importance of testing your disaster recovery plan<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Probably the worst DBA sin is losing a database and its backups too. IMHO there&#8217;s no excuse for that &#8211; don&#8217;t let it happen to you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of weeks ago I kicked off a survey about where you store your backups. Here are the results: The&#8217;Other&#8217; responses are: 8 x &#8216;Stored on same SAN, different LUN as databases, with off-site copies.&#8217; 6 x &#8216;Copy 1 stored on same SAN (1-2 days) for quick restore in non-physical disaster. Copy 2 stored [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-backuprestore","category-disaster-recovery"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Importance of where you store your backups - Paul S. 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