VPS backups scheme

[KH-Paul]

While we worked on updated backups functionality we also researched various solutions around and the only other interesting backup solution we found was R1Soft CDP Solution. Both, Virtuozzo's built-in and R1Soft's backup solutions have their own cons and pros and we would be interested to know your opinion about the backup scheme you prefer us to deliver.

Here is a general and very basic summary of pros and cons from various points of view:

Virtuozzo backup pros (from customer point of view)
1. Built into Power Panel;
2. Delivered free of charge by us.

Virtuozzo backup cons (from customer point of view):
1. With VZ 3.0 only full VPS restore is available (VZ 4.0 suppose to be able to deliver single file restoration);
2. Slow. Both, backup creation and restoration takes significant amount of time;

Virtuozzo backup cons (from KH point of view):
1. Slow. Depending on number of files stored inside the VPS and, especially within single directory both restore and backup creation operations could take hours;
2. Impact on performance – Virtuozzo backups are done on the filesystem level and it takes significant amount of time, CPU power, disk I/O and memory for backups creation due to full filesystem scan on each backup run.

CDP pros (from customer point of view):
1. Ability to restore single file / directory;
2. Higher number of restore points (we will probably switch to daily backups scheme if CDP would be implemented).

CDP cons (from customer point of view):
1. Some sort of a fee would be introduced with this solution;
2. One more control panel URL, username and password to remember;
3. Inability to see / manage VPS backups through the Power Panel.

CDP pros (from KH point of view):
1. Decreased load on servers – even creation of the initial restore point would cause reduced amount of damage to overall performance as R1Soft’s solution is a sector level backup and is working on pre-filesystem level;
2. Faster backups creation;
3. Ability to create more restore points for customer’s filesystems.

CDP cons (from KH point of view):
1. Overall price of this solution;
2. One more added possible point of failure;
3. One more vendor to work with;
4. Possible increase in Sales and Support departments load due to processing of inquires related to this product.

 

[ppc]

2. Higher number of restore points (we will probably switch to daily backups scheme if CDP would be implemented).

Would you be thinking of doing multiple restore points per day? If so, I would definitely think it would be worth paying for that.

On WHT, there were some reports of CDP and corruption/bad performance....any thoughts on that?

Regards,

 

[Yogesh Sarkar]

How about some RSync based solution?

 

[ppc]

How about some RSync based solution?

You know of such a solution that would allow for whole VPS image backups?

 

[Yogesh Sarkar]

Nope, but I think a backup system which backs up only changed files would be beneficial and would cause less load in the long run.

 

[Dan]

Ok I had this huge long post written but at the end realized that it came down to one thing.

If VZ 4.0 can give me the granularity of single file restoration I will be happy with that.

I do not think that I would get rid of my offsite storage in either case simply because it's just that. Offsite.

 

[rezag]

I second Dan's post, not sure I can add anything else

 

[KH-Paul]

Thanks for the feedback provided. This definitely helps to move into the right direction.

ppc - it would be doable if R1Soft will provide functionality which would allow to skip certain directories/files such us locally stored in-VPS created account backups. I would imagine that with CDP we will be able to handle nightly backups (instead of current every other day scheme) and probably it would be possible to do 12 hour snapshots if ability to exclude specific directories would be implemented.

Yogesh - rsync isn't any better than any other "standard" backup solution as it does full filesystem scan on each run however when it comes to VPS backups rsync won't be doing good job at all as it isn't designed to keep multiple restore points. Also, any kind of backup compression can't be done with rsync which is a big deal when it comes to anything bigger than just single site / VPS. As of right now we store about 12-15 TB of data in compressed format on backup systems in TX alone. Remove compression and backup space requirements will go up.

Dan - we plan to test backup functionality in VZ 4.0 before software upgrade will be started. So far our main concerns with this new release were about stability and overall operational environment, it doesn't make much sense to do extensive backup testing if actual software can't be put into the production mode due to other reasons.
Offsite backups is something that is absolutely necessary for any more or less important data.

Regards,
Paul