Multi Site to Data Center Questions

[cscbrandon]

Hi All,

We are currently testing Syncovery in our environment and I wanted to explain our current needs to see if anyone using Syncovery can offer us suggestions as to how to best use the product in our environment.

We currently have 28 (and growing rapidly) remote locations. Each location has an onsite server (OSes range from SBS 2003 to Server Standard 2008) and a NAS device. The server backs up a few SQL databases and new or changed files from our practice management software to the NAS device every night. This is usually around 250MB or so, but the entire database is pushed from the server to the NAS because we perform a file-level transfer. However, this isn't an issue since the NAS is on the same LAN as the server and the full backup from server to NAS generally takes less than an hour including the time it takes to scan all files and folders for changes and additions.

From the NAS, we perform another backup over WAN to our main data center. Much like the LAN backup, only new and changed files are transferred. The problem that we face is that our databases (which range in size between 1GB and 6GB) have to be pushed over WAN in their entirety as we are not performing a block-level transfer. This can cause major headaches in locations where bandwidth is limited and regularly causes a few remote locations to extend their WAN backups beyond the backup window.

The good news is that our current LAN and WAN backups are not storing the data in a proprietary format, so Syncovery should have no issues recognizing the data we already have backed up and comparing it to the onsite NAS.

My questions are as follows:

Is Syncovery the best tool to solve our problem? If so, what would be the best practices to follow in our particular situation to complete the WAN backups in the shortest amount of time possible? Can any of you that have experienced a similar situation share tips and tricks?

Thank you all for reading.

[superflexible]

It should be able to perform very well when you use the block-level upload feature. You can use either Windows networking via VPN or SSH. SSH means you need a SSH server software on your server.

For the most realiable and line fault tolerant operation, I recommend installing the Syncovery Remote Service on your backup server. This will generate checksums to enable the block level transfer.

See also
http://www.syncovery.com/block-level-copying/ (use Mode 2 as explained on this page)

as well as
http://www.syncovery.com/remoteservice/ for a description of the Syncovery Remote Service.