LMV Snapshots

[klussier at comcast.net]

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Paul Lussier <p.lussier at comcast.net>


> klussier at comcast.net writes:
> 
> > And, for complete disaster recovery, it's a RAID 10 system ;-)
> 
> For a complete disaster recovery, you want spare systems in a rack at
> another location to which your offsite backups can be delivered!

I go a little bit further then this. I take the snapshot, mount it, rsync it to a different server in a different rack on a different UPS, then from that server, I rsync it to a different server in a different rack on a different UPS in a different building in a different country :-) Oh, and I write it to tape from both  the backup server  here and the one in India. 

The backup server here also acts as a warm-spare. If the master server dies, I just change the IP address on the backup server, and it resumes right where the master server died. I have tested this a few times to make sure it all works, and it did. No one even noticed that the mail server died. 

> And, for those *really* concerned about data loss due to drive
> failure, you'd be using RAID 015 or 016 with SCSI or FC drives.[2][3]

Yeah.... I'm actually using SATA2 drives. I didn't purchase the box, so I had to use what I inherited. Thus the reason for the complex and thourough backup solution. 

> [1] Funny how when you're running out of it, "disk space is cheap",
>     but when you want to plan for stability, performance, and disaster,
>     "it costs too much" :)

I'm guessing that this is the precise reason that the system has SATA2 instead of SCSI...
 
C-Ya,
Kenny