Backup Solution

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A little less than a year after implementing our server virtualization project (click here to read my post about that initiative), we have finally set the wheels in motion for a district-wide off-site backup solution.

We are purchasing a Dell R710 server for the storage capacity with an initial 6TB of storage. The brains behind the project is a product from Vizioncore called vRanger Pro that is specifically designed for VMWare environments.

Over the last couple of weeks my network administrator has been using the trial version to create backups of our existing virtual servers and just store them locally. He said the ease of use with this product is unlike any backup solution or server product he has worked with. The tool was very simple to install and even easier to configure. Once initialized it immediately works with VMWare to locate the virtual servers and connect.

Another cool feature of this product is the ability to create a backup of a physical server (we still have a couple that we simply are waiting for the box to die) and then restore it as a virtual server.

Once the server and solution arrive (hopefully within a few more business days) we will place the server at an off-site location - away from our main campus, which will provide safe backups should our campus ever have a catastrophic event.

It is the peace of mind knowing that "should something happen" all data and servers could be restored within minutes/hours and most users would not know there was any downtime. I strongly recommend any users out there who have already invested in VMWare to take a look at Vizioncore's suite of tools, because in addition to vRanger Pro they also offer other tools designed for the virtual environment to make a network administrator's job that much easier.

JDS | CIO