Re: [foxboro] Convert a Foxboro P91 Server from a P91 Dell Power Edge 2800 to a new Dell Power Edge 2900

  • From: <Jack.Easley@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <foxboro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 11:00:53 -0600

Folks,

All I know for sure is that Symantec Backup Exec is a kazillion times
better than what we had with tape backups, and it has worked perfectly
every time I have used it to restore. 

The point Tom brought up about the CSA AW needing to be backed up at
about the same time as the other AWs is a good one. I will change my
backup schedules such that they all run on the same night of the week,
rather than successive nights. Of course we had this issue with tape
backups before and it was even worse, unless you did tape backups on all
AWs the same night (unlikely).

I feel that Symantec has put a lot into this over the years and that it
is better than Windows Shadowing as Cory mentions. I'm not going to
worry about corrupted files using this procedure unless I hear reports
here or elsewhere.

Of course, as both Cory and Tom mention, timing is everything, so keep
it in mind while planning your backup strategy. 

Jack Easley
Sr. I&C Technician
Luminant Power, Martin Lake Plant
Phone 903.836.6241
jack.easley@xxxxxxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: foxboro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:foxboro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of tjvandew@xxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 9:41 AM
To: foxboro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [foxboro] Convert a Foxboro P91 Server from a P91 Dell
Power Edge 2800 to a new Dell Power Edge 2900

Corey,
    Good question.  Scheduling the backup during times when applications

are not in use would be a good thing.  In the case of the Aim historian,

it is always collecting data but this whole backup and restore scheme 
assumes that you are willing to take a loss of historical data because 
it is highly unlikely that you will have performed an online backup 
immediately before you lose a hard drive and have to restore.  The other

more significant issue is that new blocks or compounds get added between

the last online backup and your need to restore.  This means you will 
have CSA and workfile mis-matches that you will have to resolve.  From 
what I can see there is no silver bullet that addresses all of these 
issues.  So you go with the option that will hopefully get you back up 
and running with the least pain.
    As I said before, we did have one instance where the boot record on 
a P92 was corrupt and we couldn't boot off the hard drive but we were 
able to boot off of the Acronis "True Image" CD and backup the D: 
partition.  We built a new box from a Day 0 and then restored the D: 
partition and we were back up and running on the same day.  It was a 
risk but we were successful.  "I'd rather be lucky than good";<)

Tom VandeWater
Control Conversions, Inc.

Corey R Clingo wrote:
> I'm curious -- with any of these solutions, is there any concern about

> consistency of the backups when doing them online?  I see 2 potential 
> issues:
>
> 1. Single-file inconsistency -- files being backed up while being
written, 
> leaving the backup copy corrupt.  Windows has Volume Shadow Copy for
this, 
> but I believe applications have to be written to take advantage of it
(and 
> I'm guessing most of Foxboro's aren't).
>
>
> 2. Multiple-file inconsistency -- one file not "matching" another file

> because they were backed up at different times while an application
using 
> both of them was writing to them.
>
>
> The scary thing about this to me is that it may only bite you 1 time
in 
> 100.  It must still be an issue for some, as some (large) applications
we 
> use that are constantly writing data to disk have "write pause" or 
> buffering options to allow you to run backups on consistent file sets.
>
>
> Corey Clingo
> BASF Corp.
>   

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