Backing Up Your Data

 < Day Day Up > 



Windows Small Business Server provides an excellent wizard that configures and executes backups. For most users and situations, using the provided wizard is definitely the way to go. You can also manually run Backup Utility (located by accessing Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools folder) for a greater set of options and choices. However, for daily full backups, automatically scheduled, using the wizard is the way to go.

start sidebar
Real World

Test Your Backups!

A wise and perspicacious system administrator once explained to me that there were only two kinds of backups: ones that had been tested and verified, and ones that were worthless. Strong words, but worthy of some serious consideration. Magnetic tapes are not a perfect medium and they are subject to all kinds of possible errors and corruption. Until you have actually taken your backup tape and restored it, you don’t actually know you can. Although in the real world not every single backup will get a full restore test, you really should test a full restore regularly, and a partial restore of a randomly selected set of files and folders more often, at least once a week and on a different day each week. Also check the Event Log and all your backup logs for any error messages that Backup Utility has generated. By carefully monitoring logs, and regularly checking the integrity of your tapes by restoring from them, you have at least reduced the likelihood of undetected problems causing a failed restore.

end sidebar

Configuring the Backup Utility

The first time you use the Backup Configuration Wizard for Windows Small Business Server, you will also be configuring your regular backup schedule. To get started, click Backup in the Server Management console. If you haven’t yet configured Backup, your details pane will look like Figure 13-1.

click to expand
Figure 13-1: The Backup Utility in Server Management console, before configuring.

To configure the Backup Utility, complete the following steps:

  1. Click Configure Backup to start the Backup Configuration Wizard shown in Figure 13-2. Click Next.

  2. On the Backup Location page, set the backup location, as shown in Figure 13-3. A tape drive is the preferred backup location. If you’re backing up to a hard drive, you can browse to find the location, or simply type the location in the Store BackUp Files At This Location box. Click Next.

    click to expand
    Figure 13-2: The Backup Configuration Wizard.

    click to expand
    Figure 13-3: The Backup Location page.

  3. On the Backup Data Summary page, the default is for everything to be backed up. If you want to exclude certain folders from the standard backup, click Exclude Folders to open the Exclude Folders dialog box, shown in Figure 13-4.

  4. Add folders to the exclusion by clicking the Add Folder button, or highlight an existing exclusion and click Remove to add it back into the backup set. Click OK to return to the Backup Data Summary page. If you’ve excluded any folders, they will now show on the list.

    click to expand
    Figure 13-4: The Exclude Folders dialog box.

  5. Click Calculate Folder Sizes to update the display to show how much space you’ve excluded. Click Next.

  6. On the Define Backup Schedule page, shown in Figure 13-5, the default schedule calls for backups to be performed Monday through Friday evenings at 11 P.M. Make any changes you need to here, and click Next.

    click to expand
    Figure 13-5: The Define Backup Schedule page.

  7. If you are backing up to a tape, the Onsite Tape Changer page appears (Figure 13-6). (If you’re backing up to a hard drive, you won’t see this page, so skip to the next step.) Designate the person who will be responsible for changing tapes, known as the Onsite Tape Changer, and select the time when he or she will get an automatic reminder to change the tape. You can also send this person a monthly reminder to clean the tape drive by selecting the Send A Monthly Tape Drive Cleaning Reminder check box. Click Next.

    click to expand
    Figure 13-6: The Onsite Tape Changer page.

    Tip 

    Windows Small Business Server will automatically remind you to do a monthly tape cleaning, which is good, but we prefer weekly cleanings. Cleaning tapes is cheap, but failed backups are potentially very expensive.

  8. On the Storage Allocation For Deleted Files And E-Mail page (Figure 13-7), choose how long to retain copies of deleted e-mail messages, and how much space to allocate for snapshots of the files in shared folders (Volume Shadow Copy). Clearing the check boxes will disable that functionality. Click Next.

    click to expand
    Figure 13-7: The Storage Allocation For Deleted Files And E-Mail page.

  9. The final page of the wizard shows a summary of your backup configuration. If everything is OK, click Finish to implement the configuration.

Running a Backup Manually

Windows Small Business Server will schedule your backup for you, but there are often situations where you want to manually execute a back up. You can use the Backup Utility directly, or if you prefer, use your already-configured selections for Windows Small Business Server.

Full Manual Backup

To use your already-configured backup selections, target, and so on, you can run the Backup Utility from within the Server Management console by clicking Backup, and then clicking Backup Now.

start sidebar
Under the Hood

Backup Scripts

The Backup Utility uses backup scripts (*.bks) to control the backup process. Small Business Server creates a “Small Business Backup Script.bks” file in the %SystemDrive%\Program Files\Microsoft Windows Small Business Server\Backup directory to control the automated backups. When you run the configuration wizard, this script gets updated. But if you run the Backup Utility directly, the utility stores the scripts you create in user-specific directories—%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\ Microsoft\Windows NT\NTBackup\Data—not terribly helpful when you have multiple users who might have responsibility for initiating a backup.

end sidebar

Back Up Selected Files and Folders

Rather than use the Windows Small Business Server Backup Configuration Wizard to change the standard backup selections, you can manually run the Backup Utility to make specific backups of important files or folders, or whenever you need to manually run a backup without backing up the entire server. To do this, start the Backup Utility by clicking Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Backup. Start the Backup Utility in Advanced Mode, as shown in Figure 13-8. From here you can use the Backup Wizard to select files, or click the

Backup tab and manually select the files you want to back up. Whether you use a wizard to help you select files or go straight to the Backup tab and select them yourself, you use a Microsoft Windows Explorer–like hierarchical display, as shown in Figure 13-9, to browse your drives and make selections using the check boxes. You can select entire drives or individual files and directories for backup. The System State item backs up the registry and the Active Directory database on the local machine, as well as other system elements required in a disaster recovery situation.

click to expand
Figure 13-8: The Advanced Mode of the Windows Small Business Server 2003 Backup Utility.

click to expand
Figure 13-9: Choosing files and folders to back up.

Creating Selection Scripts After you select the files and directories to back up, you can create a selection script that contains the job configuration you created. After choosing Save Selections from the Job menu, you specify a filename with a .BKS extension for the selection script and the directory where the program should create it. You can use selection scripts to create an identical backup job during a subsequent session by loading the selection script from the Job menu. When you do this, the same system elements you selected before creating the script are selected again. You can then run the job as is or make additional selections. You can also use the script to execute the job from the Ntbackup.exe command line.

Accessing Files and Folders for Backup To back up any files and folders, the account used to run the job must have the appropriate permissions granting access to those files and folders. A user who is an Administrator is automatically granted permission to back up any and all files and folders on the server. Other users will have permission to back up their own files and folders.

Selecting the Backup Target After you specify what you want to back up, you must tell the program where to write the data. In the Backup Destination drop-down list, the File option is the default. If you used the Backup Configuration Wizard to specify a tape device as a destination, you’ll also have an option to use that tape device. After you make a selection, use the Backup Media Or File Name box to specify a tape or disk name or the path and filename the program should use to create a backup file.

Note 

The Server Management Backup wizards will not let you select a CD or DVD writeable drive as a backup device. But if you are manually running the Backup Utility, and you have third-party software that formats the CD or DVD to let it be treated as a hard drive, you can use a writeable or rewriteable CD or DVD drive as your backup destination.

When you select a tape device, you can then select one of the existing tapes already created by the Windows Small Business Server Backup Utility Wizard, or use the name New. When you have all your selections made, click Start Backup.

This opens the Backup Job Information dialog box shown in Figure 13-10. From here, type a description for the backup and a new name for the tape or disk file.

click to expand
Figure 13-10: The Backup Job Information dialog box.

Now all you need to do is click Start Backup and the backup begins. If you want to set advanced backup options, click Advanced. The options that you can set are:

  • Back Up Data That Is In Remote Storage

  • Verify Data After Backup

  • If Possible, Compress The Backup Data To Save Space

  • Automatically Backup System Protected Files When Backing Up The System State

  • Disable Volume Shadow Copy

  • Backup Type

Some of these might not apply to your selections or backup destination, and will be unavailable.

You can also schedule this backup to occur later by clicking Schedule. You’ll have to save your selections before you can schedule the backup for later because the scheduler uses backup scripts to manage the backups. You’ll be prompted for a name for the selection script, and for a user account and password to use to run the scheduled job. Finally, you can give the job a name, select the scheduled properties, and add the job to the schedule.

Caution 

If you run a manual job that writes a backup to tape, make sure that the person responsible for changing tapes knows about the job and that the job doesn’t interfere with the normal backup schedule. It’s all too easy to have your job overwritten, and the nightly backup job fail as well.

Modifying the Backup Configuration

Instead of running the full Windows Small Business Server Backup Configuration Wizard to change one element of the backup configuration, you can run a shortened version of the Configuration Wizard to just change one portion. The options are listed on the left side of the Backup pane, as shown in Figure 13-11.

click to expand
Figure 13-11: The Manage Small Business Server Backup pane.

To change an element of the backup configuration, click:

  • Modify The Backup Schedule This allows you to modify the default backup schedule without affecting other configuration items. You’ll see the Define Backup Schedule page shown in Figure 13-5.

  • Modify Storage For Deleted Files And E-Mail This allows you to modify the storage and retention settings for deleted files and e-mail without affecting other configuration items. You’ll see The Storage Allocation For Deleted Files And E-Mail page shown in Figure 13-7.

  • Select A New Tape Changer If you are using a tape backup, this allows you to change the person designated to change tapes without affecting other configuration items. You can also set the notification options for the new designee. You’ll see the Onsite Tape Changer page shown in Figure 13-6.



 < Day Day Up > 



Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 Administrator's Companion
Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 Administrators Companion (Pro-Administrators Companion)
ISBN: 0735620202
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 224

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net