Hi All,

We recently had a very bad system crash and it took a week to recover
everything.

In order to prevent this in the future, we are looking for an
inexpensive disaster recovery option. I've heard to these systems
where you basically rent disk space and set up your own system,
although I am not sure of the technical term used.

The site would have to run the following:
- HTTP / Apache
- Perl
- Postfix (this is a must)
- SSH
- Crontab entries

If you know of any inexpensive sites, please let me know. I would only
need about 50GB or less......

Thanks.

amerar@iwc.net writes:

>Hi All,

>We recently had a very bad system crash and it took a week to recover
>everything.

>In order to prevent this in the future, we are looking for an
>inexpensive disaster recovery option. I've heard to these systems
>where you basically rent disk space and set up your own system,
>although I am not sure of the technical term used.

An inexpensive disaster recovery is to duplicate your server. Ie, set up
another machine and every night duplicate (eg rsync) the disk on your main
server to the spare machine. When your main machine dies, just change the
IP address on the spare and put it in.
Much cheaper than using an outside firm, which also makes all of your data
available to them and makes you reliant on their security, not your own.



>The site would have to run the following:
> - HTTP / Apache
> - Perl
> - Postfix (this is a must)
> - SSH
> - Crontab entries

>If you know of any inexpensive sites, please let me know. I would only
>need about 50GB or less......

>Thanks.

What I am looking for is an offsite location. Biggest problem is that
fricken SBC cut out DSL line my mistake instead of cutting our voice
line, as we were moving locations. And, then they could not restore
the DSL for two fricken weeks.

The had a dial tone on the new line in the new location in 2 hours, but
made us wait 2 weeks for DSL. So, in case the DSL ever does down
again, I want an off site location where I can point domains to and we
can continue our operations......

Thanks.

amerar@iwc.net writes:


>What I am looking for is an offsite location. Biggest problem is that
>fricken SBC cut out DSL line my mistake instead of cutting our voice
>line, as we were moving locations. And, then they could not restore
>the DSL for two fricken weeks.

I am sure you could make up a loss figure that you could "request" they pay
you for the downtime.


>The had a dial tone on the new line in the new location in 2 hours, but
>made us wait 2 weeks for DSL. So, in case the DSL ever does down
>again, I want an off site location where I can point domains to and we
>can continue our operations......

AGain, why would you rely on an outside company. Put it in your home on
your own dsl line. Giving control over your whole operation to an outside
company sounds dangerous to me.

"Unruh" <unruh-spam@physics.ubc.ca> wrote in message
news:dmo5l3$3bi$1@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca...
> amerar@iwc.net writes:

> AGain, why would you rely on an outside company. Put it in your home on
> your own dsl line. Giving control over your whole operation to an outside

Because having an off-site facility can save your ass if the building has an
electrical fire or water disaster. And mirroring a churining set of 50
Gigabytes can suck down a lot of bandwidth.

How much content can you afford to not have on the backup? A day or two?
Then an external, bootable USB or Firewire drive with system dumps on it can
save your ass and allow you to move the server *ANYWHERE*.

"Nico Kadel-Garcia" <nkadel@comcast.net> writes:


>"Unruh" <unruh-spam@physics.ubc.ca> wrote in message
>news:dmo5l3$3bi$1@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca...
>> amerar@iwc.net writes:

>> AGain, why would you rely on an outside company. Put it in your home on
>> your own dsl line. Giving control over your whole operation to an outside

>Because having an off-site facility can save your ass if the building has an
>electrical fire or water disaster. And mirroring a churining set of 50
>Gigabytes can suck down a lot of bandwidth.

Yes, the question is not "off site " or not. The question is whether that
off site location is controlled by you or by someone else. It is the latter
that is potentially dangerous.

And using something like rsync can make that 50GB result in only a few MB
transfer every night.



>How much content can you afford to not have on the backup? A day or two?
>Then an external, bootable USB or Firewire drive with system dumps on it can
>save your ass and allow you to move the server *ANYWHERE*.

The problem with such a thing is that very soon you forget to take it off
site every day and bring it back the next day. Ie, it is far better to have
your computer be disciplined than you.

"Unruh" <unruh-spam@physics.ubc.ca> wrote in message
news:dmoe05$4he$1@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca...
> "Nico Kadel-Garcia" <nkadel@comcast.net> writes:
>
>
>>"Unruh" <unruh-spam@physics.ubc.ca> wrote in message
>>news:dmo5l3$3bi$1@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca...
>>> amerar@iwc.net writes:
>
>>> AGain, why would you rely on an outside company. Put it in your home on
>>> your own dsl line. Giving control over your whole operation to an
>>> outside
>
>>Because having an off-site facility can save your ass if the building has
>>an
>>electrical fire or water disaster. And mirroring a churining set of 50
>>Gigabytes can suck down a lot of bandwidth.
>
> Yes, the question is not "off site " or not. The question is whether that
> off site location is controlled by you or by someone else. It is the
> latter
> that is potentially dangerous.
>
> And using something like rsync can make that 50GB result in only a few MB
> transfer every night.

Run the numbers. DSL is typically on the rough order of 1 MHz. That's a
download speed on the order of 100 KBytes/second, for the entire business's
bandwidth. So let's cut that in half right there, to prevent using all the
bandwidth at any obvious chokepoint. That limits it to about 50
Kbytes/second, which is a pretty good download rate.

Now, multiply that by roughly 86,400 seconds in a day, or roughly 100,000,
and we get 5,000,000 Kbytes/day, or 5 Gig/day tops. It also ignores the CPU
burdens of rsyncing such a large repository and running it over SSH all day
to prevent interception or unauthorized traffic. At that point, carrying
home an external bootable drive sounds pretty good.

"Nico Kadel-Garcia" <nkadel@comcast.net> writes

> "Unruh" <unruh-spam@physics.ubc.ca> wrote in messag
> news:dmo5l3$3bi$1@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca..
> amerar@iwc.net writes
>
> AGain, why would you rely on an outside company. Put it in your hom
o
> your own dsl line. Giving control over your whole operation to a
outsid
>
> Because having an off-site facility can save your ass if th
building has a
> electrical fire or water disaster. And mirroring a churining set o
5
> Gigabytes can suck down a lot of bandwidth
>
Yes, the question is not "off site " or not. The question is whethe
tha
off site location is controlled by you or by someone else. It is th
latte
that is potentially dangerous.

And using something like rsync can make that 50GB result in only a fe
M
transfer every night.


> How much content can you afford to not have on the backup? A day o
two
> Then an external, bootable USB or Firewire drive with system dump
on it ca
> save your ass and allow you to move the server *ANYWHERE*
>
The problem with such a thing is that very soon you forget to take i
of
site every day and bring it back the next day. Ie, it is far better t
hav
your computer be disciplined than you

In comp.os.linux.setup Nico Kadel-Garcia <nkadel@comcast.net>:

> "Unruh" <unruh-spam@physics.ubc.ca> wrote in message
> news:dmoe05$4he$1@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca...
>> "Nico Kadel-Garcia" <nkadel@comcast.net> writes:
>>
>>
>>>"Unruh" <unruh-spam@physics.ubc.ca> wrote in message
>>>news:dmo5l3$3bi$1@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca...
>>>> amerar@iwc.net writes:
>>
>>>> AGain, why would you rely on an outside company. Put it in your home on
>>>> your own dsl line. Giving control over your whole operation to an
>>>> outside
>>
>>>Because having an off-site facility can save your ass if the building has
>>>an
>>>electrical fire or water disaster. And mirroring a churining set of 50
>>>Gigabytes can suck down a lot of bandwidth.
>>
>> Yes, the question is not "off site " or not. The question is whether that
>> off site location is controlled by you or by someone else. It is the
>> latter
>> that is potentially dangerous.
>>
>> And using something like rsync can make that 50GB result in only a few MB
>> transfer every night.

> Run the numbers. DSL is typically on the rough order of 1 MHz. That's a
1Mbit?

> download speed on the order of 100 KBytes/second, for the entire business's
> bandwidth. So let's cut that in half right there, to prevent using all the
> bandwidth at any obvious chokepoint. That limits it to about 50
> Kbytes/second, which is a pretty good download rate.

Excuse me, get close to 700 KBytes/second download on my home
DSL no business line or so, just a plain consumer pipe.

> Now, multiply that by roughly 86,400 seconds in a day, or roughly 100,000,
> and we get 5,000,000 Kbytes/day, or 5 Gig/day tops. It also ignores the CPU
> burdens of rsyncing such a large repository and running it over SSH all day
> to prevent interception or unauthorized traffic. At that point, carrying
> home an external bootable drive sounds pretty good.

Use unison instead of rsync it only uses a fraction CPU power
unlike rsync. Frequently mirror some hundreds of GB repository
using unison through ssh with no mentionable performance
degration on both systems.

Bill's point was that once the mirror is synced for the first
time, following runs will only transfer the bytes changed, which
might just be a few MB daily.

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo zvpunry@urvzvat.qr | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 79: Look, buddy: Windows 3.1 IS A General
Protection Fault.

Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote (in part):

> Run the numbers. DSL is typically on the rough order of 1 MHz. That's a
> download speed on the order of 100 KBytes/second, for the entire business's
> bandwidth. So let's cut that in half right there, to prevent using all the
> bandwidth at any obvious chokepoint. That limits it to about 50
> Kbytes/second, which is a pretty good download rate.

My local telephone company is now offering FiOS service, that is fibre to
the home for various rates, depending on bandwidth. Here are a few entries
from their latest offering (to which I have not yet subscribed). Price
includes local telephone service that is then delivered by the same
fibre-optic channel instead of copper. These are for individual customers.
They have additional services for business, at higher prices, but the same
data rates as below. Additional features allow you to have static IP
addresses, and may allow you to run servers connected to the Internet.

Download Upload Price
Speed Speed US$/mo.

5.0 Mbps 2.0 Mbps $34.95
15.0 Mbps 2.0 Mbps $44.95
30.0 Mbps 5.0 Mbps $179.95
>
> Now, multiply that by roughly 86,400 seconds in a day, or roughly 100,000,
> and we get 5,000,000 Kbytes/day, or 5 Gig/day tops. It also ignores the CPU
> burdens of rsyncing such a large repository and running it over SSH all day
> to prevent interception or unauthorized traffic. At that point, carrying
> home an external bootable drive sounds pretty good.
>
>


--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A Registered Machine 241939.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 06:50:00 up 5 days, 17:20, 3 users, load average: 4.16, 4.25, 4.20