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So I am looking for recommendations for enterprise backup solutions for Windows. I am hugely disappointed with Acronis though on an individual station it's fine -- centralized = FAIL.

Needs to:

  • Support centralized management ( deployment if possible )
  • Alerts
  • Work with laptops
  • Centralized monitoring.
  • incremental - differential
  • Space management
  • Bare metal recovery.

If BackupPC or Bacula supported easy Bare Metal restore I'd look at those but I have a few stations that have complicated ( read time-consuming ) setups that I'd like to be able to restore easily and quickly.

Thanks for reading!

Bubnoff

****Update****

Spoke with a rep and it sounds like what the doctor ordered. Will set up the trial this week. Thank you to all who responded. Backups and virus cleanup are the bane of any sysadmin's existence -- looks like this could improve life a little.

Bubnoff
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  • You really should separate bare metal recovery from normal backups. Trying to find one solution that will do a good job of both will only lead to disappointment. – John Gardeniers Feb 16 '11 at 20:59
  • Are the majority of your server physical or virtual? Do you have a virtualization initiative? – SpacemanSpiff Feb 16 '11 at 21:00
  • @John Gardeniers - I'm really glad you said that. I was getting that impression myself but stopped short of building a strategy around it. What's yours? – Bubnoff Feb 16 '11 at 21:15
  • @SpacemanSpiff - We do have a virtualization initiative but for servers mainly. I'm not worried about those that are virtualized so much as the ones that are not; as well as certain workstations. – Bubnoff Feb 16 '11 at 21:17
  • @Bubnoff, for backups (Windows, Mac and Linux) I use BackupExec. For bare metal it's a manual operation using any one of various tools (e.g. Ghost, Clonezilla, etc). – John Gardeniers Feb 16 '11 at 22:34
  • I use Ghost and Clonezilla as well for BMR. Going to give this one a shot as well [redobackup](http://redobackup.org/). That then begs the question though: why not backupPC or Bacula? Support contracts? – Bubnoff Feb 16 '11 at 22:57

2 Answers2

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BackupExec comes to mind right away. Should be fine with everything you are asking for, provided you purchase the right licenses

dyasny
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  • I would agree Backup Exec 2010 is one of the best products out there for backing up Windows Products. http://www.symantec.com/business/products/family.jsp?familyid=backupexec – Chadddada Feb 16 '11 at 21:00
  • @Chadddada - Are you currently using it in a production environment? Wondering what folk's experience with it is like. – Bubnoff Feb 16 '11 at 21:21
  • 14 jobs for Daily backup window: 2/15/2011 6:00:00 PM thru 2/16/2011 10:00:00 AM 97 SUCCESS 16 WARNING 1 FAILED Yes – Chadddada Feb 16 '11 at 23:55
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As mentioned, Backup Exec 2010 is great and has the Desktop/Laptop option ( five licenses included in base license). I would also add Backup Exec System Recovery to this. It does a great job on Bare Metal install and will restore to different hardware easily. In smaller installs, it can replace Backup Exec 2010 but a combo is perfect. Backup Exec System recovery will also convert the recovery image to a VM for DR or testing.

Dave M
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  • Well that's three endorsements. I'll definitely have to give it a shot. Does the server module run on Linux? I don't mind Windows Desktops so much -- but it'd be nice if the server was Linux. – Bubnoff Feb 16 '11 at 21:47