Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

You are here: MacNN Forums > Enthusiast Zone > Networking > Ok I need the best you have....

Ok I need the best you have....
Thread Tools
bishopazrael
Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Nov 2006
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 20, 2009, 01:28 PM
 
I need your guys' help. I'm the IT for a new company. Its a company of 4 people over 3 different states. We're working over the web. As the new "head" of IT I am a bit out of my depth. I'm a repair tech. Now I'm venturing into new territory.

I am setting up a Mac Mini with firewire to hook up to a Drobo. The mini is to serve as a file server and the drobo as a back up. I plan on installing 10.6 server on the Mini. There is a second drobo at the boss' location. We want the back ups on the drobos to be synchronized.

I know I'm out of my depth, so I need as much good advice as you guys can spare. I want this to be as easy as possible for my end users and me. I want to know if I should be using Apple's VPN to bring the other computers on the net into my network?

I know that I'll need a static IP and we're planning on paying for that with Verizon FIOS, but not for at least a month or so. Once the static IP is in place, what do I need to do? Is there a good tutorial that would show me how to set up a basic vpn for my situation? Do I need a VPN?

The main goal is to be able to have people connect to the network, retrieve their docs and be able to back up that info. Email is being handled by Godaddy.

Help! I'm so lost I feel a bit overwhelmed.
Backups are like guns and condoms. It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
     
turtle777
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: planning a comeback !
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 20, 2009, 02:29 PM
 
Originally Posted by bishopazrael View Post
We want the back ups on the drobos to be synchronized.
Is synchronization really would you need ?
It sounds more like you want both to act as redundant backups. That should be easier than having to make sure that any changes on either Drobo gets propagated to the other Drobo.

Other than that, I can't help with the VPN setup, I've never used VPN for Mac OS X Server.

But generally, the VPN idea is a good one, you don't want all that data be transmitted w/o encryption.

-t
     
bishopazrael  (op)
Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Nov 2006
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 20, 2009, 09:03 PM
 
Yeah we want both drobos to be in sync and each a backup of company info and docs.
Backups are like guns and condoms. It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
     
besson3c
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: yes
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 20, 2009, 09:22 PM
 
rsync over SSH would be much easier than VPN, and you'd get your encrypted tunnel for free.

Are these two sites on static IPs? The first thing I would do is look into creating a firewall rule to only allow this sync between your static IP. Once this is safe and secured, and rsync cronjob would be perfect for this.

The question is, do you want a full sync, or a mirror? Snapshots?
     
bishopazrael  (op)
Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Nov 2006
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 21, 2009, 02:11 AM
 
yeah, since I'm being honest I looked at rsync and its above my level. I know I should know it but I don't. The nice thing is my boss knows my deficiencies and is great about me learning new stuff on my job. I think he needed someone more experinced, he wants me to grow into it. Like I said, job of a lifetime. Now you know why I want to do it right.

Right now I'm not at a command line level.
Backups are like guns and condoms. It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
     
reader50
Administrator
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: California
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 21, 2009, 03:32 AM
 
Who says you have to use rsync at the Terminal level?

Try a few of these
     
turtle777
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: planning a comeback !
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 21, 2009, 09:35 AM
 
Originally Posted by bishopazrael View Post
Yeah we want both drobos to be in sync and each a backup of company info and docs.
What I'm saying is: there is a difference between syncing and backing up.

Syncing means you have to sets of data that both got changed, and you want to merge this data, to have two equal sets of data in the end.

Backing up means you only have one set of data, and you want to copy it to the backup destination.

You should be sure about your design, and what you want to achieve.

As a general rule, synchronization is more complicated and needs more monitoring to make sure you don't discard data by accident.

-t
     
besson3c
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: yes
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 21, 2009, 11:21 AM
 
Originally Posted by bishopazrael View Post
yeah, since I'm being honest I looked at rsync and its above my level. I know I should know it but I don't. The nice thing is my boss knows my deficiencies and is great about me learning new stuff on my job. I think he needed someone more experinced, he wants me to grow into it. Like I said, job of a lifetime. Now you know why I want to do it right.

Right now I'm not at a command line level.

It's intimidating because there are a gazillion options, but it's really not as bad as you think...

rsync -a username@machineip:/path/to/source /path/to/destination

or

rsync -a /path/to/source username@machineip:/path/to/destination
     
besson3c
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: yes
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 21, 2009, 11:22 AM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
What I'm saying is: there is a difference between syncing and backing up.

Syncing means you have to sets of data that both got changed, and you want to merge this data, to have two equal sets of data in the end.

Backing up means you only have one set of data, and you want to copy it to the backup destination.

You should be sure about your design, and what you want to achieve.

As a general rule, synchronization is more complicated and needs more monitoring to make sure you don't discard data by accident.

-t


Good advice here. And, like I said, you ought to decide whether you want snapshots too so that you can go back in time, Time Machine style.
     
bishopazrael  (op)
Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Nov 2006
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 21, 2009, 03:19 PM
 
So, if I do want to do snapshots time machine style, should I do a time machine back up and then sync that to the 2nd drobo?

These are the things I don't know about. Thanks for helping me figure them out, its been a long week. I've got a mac mini on the way and a copy of Leo server and I was thinking this whole week "I'm toast, I'm toast".
( Last edited by bishopazrael; Nov 21, 2009 at 03:42 PM. )
Backups are like guns and condoms. It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
     
besson3c
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: yes
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 21, 2009, 03:57 PM
 
Will you be backing up on the hour, including during the work day? If so, how much upload bandwidth do you have? Enough to be uploading hourly Time Machine backups and to complete his upload within the hour without totally saturating your bandwidth?


Here's my advice:

You are putting the cart waaaayyy before the horse. I think you should have held off on purchasing hardware until you figure out some basic design related stuff, but hopefully it isn't too late to backpeddle.

You need to figure out:

1) Do you want a mirror, or a set of syncronized data?
2) Do you want snapshots? How many days/weeks?
3) How much space will you need? Will this be growing over time? What happens when/if you run out of space?
4) In the case of your offsite backups, how frequently will these be run? After hours?
5) What is going to be backed up? Just important data? Entire machines?
6) How many machines will be backed up? Will this be centralized storage somehow? If so, how will this be facilitated?
7) What is the company's disaster recovery plan? Would you be prepared for dealing with such a disaster? If not, what would need to happen to implement such a plan?
8) Who manages the server at your Boss' location? How do you access this server? What happens when the machine there locks up or you can't otherwise access it?
9) Budget/resources?


IMHO, there is absolutely no point in trying to match technology to a very nebulous sense of what you want to do and what your master plan is. Plan this thoughtfully, then focus on the technology.

My two cents.
     
turtle777
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: planning a comeback !
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 21, 2009, 04:13 PM
 
I'm not an expert, but rsyncing a TimeMachine backup sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

I'd rather set up TWO TimeMachine backups in parallel, but I'm not sure if that's possible.

The other option would be to use Twin to create the remote backup on the boss' Drobo.
Twin emulates the TM feature of snapshots, and can be easily set up with all kinds of servers and drives.

Also, if you're not too paranoid about someone stealing your data, a 3rd party backup service like Mozy might be a good consideration.

-t
     
bishopazrael  (op)
Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Nov 2006
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 22, 2009, 04:36 AM
 
Besson,
I'm going to sit down with that list and find the answers. But here was our grand scheme in a nut shell.

The company has 4 people in it right now, with various subcontractors. We work in film.

For the server: I was going to get Verizon FIOS installed with a static IP, 50 down/20 up sustained speeds with no cap on bandwidth. One drobo with me running off of a mini. The second drobo at his place running off of an mbp.

Users would contain their data locally. Backups would be once a week over the web to my server. On the server, they would have things like ical, address book and company docs. Things that belonged to the company like digital files would be backed up as needed. My server would then be sync'd to the 2nd drobo via software like crashplan or chronosync.

It seemed at the beginning of this that my needs were very simple. Just have people back up at night. They'd log in via VPN or something if I needed to bring them into a LAN environment. That whole VPN thing I'm not too firm on.

As for backdoors, ARD and screen sharing via ichat seems to work pretty well. Much better than VNC.

I'll figure out the answers in the next 2 days.
Backups are like guns and condoms. It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
     
turtle777
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: planning a comeback !
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 22, 2009, 04:41 AM
 
Well, that sounds different than before.

I was under the impression that you wanted your users to work with data on the remote Drobo. That doesn't seem to be the case.

-t
     
besson3c
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: yes
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 22, 2009, 01:11 PM
 
Backups would be once a week over the web to my server

Is this something that you've already planned out? If so, would you mind sharing how this part of your scheme would work? I'm assuming you mean the internet and not the web?
     
   
Thread Tools
 
Forum Links
Forum Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Top
Privacy Policy
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 03:40 AM.
All contents of these forums © 1995-2017 MacNN. All rights reserved.
Branding + Design: www.gesamtbild.com
vBulletin v.3.8.8 © 2000-2017, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.,