Case of the Great Hot-Site Swap 119
BobB writes "Two universities — Bowdoin in Maine and Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles — have entered a unique arrangement under which they are backing up each other's web sites, email and servers on different ends of the continent. They say this could be a disaster recovery model all sorts of organizations could follow. From the article: 'When Bowdoin switched over to Exchange e-mail, so the schools would have similar e-mail infrastructure, LMU staffers were their guides and advisers. "We implemented that pretty quickly," says Davis, the Bowdoin CIO. "When we launched Exchange, we had just eight calls to our help desk." And the shared experience of the infrastructure components then forms a kind of informal help desk, where managers and staff can reach out for advice, brainstorm and troubleshoot problems with their colleagues a continent away.'"
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I love how Microsoft is so fucking secure like that.
what happens when one side has more data? (Score:1)
The Great Exchange (Score:5, Funny)
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Notes does a lot of what Exchange does, and does a whole lot more.
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Having been an administrator of both systems, there's only two spots in which Notes exceeds Exchange/Outlook: in Notes, when I set an item on my calendar as "out of office", it asks if I want to set an out of office message for that time. Fantastic, but that's available in E/O 2007, so it's only an edge if you're still on older versions of the pair. Second, I can set the number of people a conference room will hold so that users can't ov
Re:The Great Big Exchange (Score:2)
Wow, "simply install"? That's gotta be a freaking joke. Any email software that requires a bare minimum of THREE servers is so insanely not-simple. My single GroupWise server is a bit old, but it still runs GroupWise for quite a few clients (granted, not 14,000) and I don't get any calls for it except two people who managed to remove their "sent items" folder (and, as you said, spam-block checking).
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And as far as smiplicity, you can just hit "Typical Installation" and it will install the required 3 roles and only ask for basi
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e
Not nearly as exciting as I first read it... (Score:5, Funny)
Pity. It being a Saturday, I kind of wanted to read that article.
Higher Ed. (Score:4, Interesting)
This really came to the forefront with the beating the New Orleans area colleges took during Katrina; from what I recall, Loyola and Tulane were really unprepared and suffered for it.
--saint
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Not that it makes a huge difference... my sister had all of her data stolen (and consequently her credit was hijacked) through infiltration of a Bay Area college by ID thieves. No off-siting involved.
Regards.
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Re:Higher Ed. (Score:4, Interesting)
My company has 30 sites and so it was easy for us to install (Linux) servers at multiple locations and arrange overnight rsync backups of data, server-located 'My Documents' folders, email & Intranet redundancy etc. for business continuity. I am a school governor for my son's local primary school and their backup procedure comprised a disk-to-disk copy from their main student server to another Windows-based server on the network, with an occasional dump to a removable hard disk.
When the school decided to improve their backup (after a disk failure and realisation that their backup process had not been working for a while, naturally!), they approached their incumbent IT supplier for a recommendation - which turned out to be a new main server with Windows 2003 Server, enough CALs for the children, a dual Xeon processors, SCSI-based RAID 5 and removable tape - very functional, very corporate and very expensive (approx £6,500) for a school that teaches 5-11 year olds!
Having approached me for my comments, we are now looking at a two-way peering arrangement with the local secondary school comprising two Linux-based servers with SATA RAID 1 (the school is only using the server for low-volume file and print services so Samba and CUPS are just what's needed), and an overnight backup strategy through the education WAN. Total cost is approx £750 for the two servers.
The only thing that may not make this fly will be County Hall red tape.
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How about just collocation? (Score:1, Informative)
I guess we sh
VPN connection over a 30Mbps link. (Score:4, Insightful)
We have many clients that mirror backups between East and West coast. They may be connected at each end at that speed, but they are almost assuredly not achieving throughput at that rate.
YMMV, but there are 3000 miles to deal with here. I've never been able to achieve speeds like that, and we have some seriously fat pipes in our data centers.
Re:VPN connection over a 30Mbps link. (Score:5, Informative)
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It doesn't matter how fat the pipes are, the speed-of-light will still bite you in the ass when you are replicating data from one coast to the other.
rsync it, with compression. (Score:4, Insightful)
After that, you should be able to copy just the changes and the new files. It is amazing.
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That way you only take a real hit during the first copy.
After that, you should be able to copy just the changes and the new files. It is amazing.
Even better, use rdiff-backup, which uses rsync to transfer minimal deltas, and preserves a complete history on the backup server. I do this with a number of systems that I back up and it works very, very well. When I first set it up I put extensive effort into building a script to automatically clean out backups so that I could keep dailies for a week, weeklies for two months, monthlies for a year, etc., but in practice I just keep dailies forever because all backups except the most recent are stored a
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That said, it's not even a big deal for latency -- light travels at 186,282 miles/second. New York to LA is approximately 2,800 miles.
Most of the latency/bandwidth lag comes from routing or congestion along the tubes.
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And throughput is affected by latency. Which was the original poster's point. A huge round-trip time will affect the number of Megabits/sec that you can get through a pipe regardless of how big the pipe is.
That said, it's not even a big deal for latency -- light travels at 186,282 miles/second. New York to LA is approximately 2,800 miles.
Light travels through fiber at a slower speed. You'll never see data moving thr
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Not necessarily. Given that these are pretty reliable links, you can set the transmission window relatively high without incurring very many penalties. That way, even if there is significant latency in the connection, you can maximize bandwidth.
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I agree, some TCP tuning will help offset the challenges introduced by the large round-trip time.
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And suddenly the speed of light seemed strangely slow
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And even then, satellite communication is perfectly usable for applications where latency isn't a huge deal, as long as your transmission protocols are properly tweaked for a high-latency connection, as long as you're not sharing it between a whole lot of customers -- the big drawback is that it's rather expensive (for some rather obvious reasons) to have a large portion of
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet2 [wikipedia.org]
So I take a look at Abilenes website and find this map: http://abilene.internet2.edu/peernetworks/domestic .html [internet2.edu]
From what I can see here
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This list [internet2.edu] [PDF] is better, and while it confirms that this particular college isn't on Internet2, University of Maine is a member. Your sleepy home state isn't entirely left out of the fun it seems.
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http://www.internet2.edu/network/library/deploymen t_phases.pdf [internet2.edu]
http://www.internet2.edu/network/deployment.html [internet2.edu]
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One of the main problem is... (Score:5, Insightful)
So unless you have some kind of legal agreement covering your actual risks it's not for everyone. But for large scale organisations, with real legal clout, like universities it might makes sense. But not for individuals.
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I don't know... companies that offer "online backup" still don't actually take responsibility for the integrity of your data. Also, you'd find out pretty quickly whether the person on the other end of your backup is doing a good job. Try accessing your data, running checksums, etc.
After all, you don't really need to make sure that the person you have the deal with never once loses a piece of data, but only that the chances are remote of him losing a piece of data at the same time you lose that same piece
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The problem is, a lot of the people trying to access your computer nowadays want to put you in jail somehow.
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Maine (Score:2, Interesting)
How'd this make the front page?! (Score:1)
Simple answer (Score:4, Funny)
Curses! (Score:2)
But, know this: you haven't seen the last of me! You shall rue the day you caught me in my own logic trap!
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I'm assuming (Score:1)
Too bad ... (Score:1, Redundant)
Oh
on a less formal/intense level: higher ed dns (Score:3, Informative)
mtnBook:~ $ whois rochester.edu
Name Servers:
NS1.UTD.ROCHESTER.EDU 128.151.2.1
NS2.UTD.ROCHESTER.EDU 128.151.7.6
SIMON.CS.CORNELL.EDU
DNS.CS.WISC.EDU
mtnBook:~ $ whois cornell.edu
Name Servers:
BIGRED.CIT.CORNELL.EDU 128.253.180.2
DNS.CIT.CORNELL.EDU 192.35.82.50
CAYUGA.CS.ROCHESTER.EDU
mtnBook:~ $ whois ucsb.edu
Name Servers:
NS1.UCSB.EDU 128.111.1.1
NS2.UCSB.EDU 128.111.1.2
KNOT.BROWN.EDU
There's a bunch more NYU/UCBerkeley, WUSTL/ULA, etc.
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whois cam.ac.uk
Servers:
authdns0.csx.cam.ac.uk 131.111.8.37
authdns1.csx.cam.ac.uk 131.111.12.37
dns0.cl.cam.ac.uk 128.232.0.19
dns1.cl.cam.ac.uk 128.232.0.18
dns0.eng.cam.ac.uk 129.169.8.8
ns2.ic.ac.uk
bitsy.mit.edu
Strange
Several universities in Ohio already doing this (Score:2, Informative)
Not for everyone... (Score:2, Insightful)
For private businesses maybe, but I'm sure hosting backups on other organizations hardware is not acceptable under SOX.
My mail is backed up in at least 5 centres (Score:5, Funny)
It is the most secure backup system in the world.
Re:My mail is backed up in at least 5 centres (Score:4, Funny)
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Survival/Preparedness community (Score:3, Interesting)
That, and what we call BOBs, or "bug out bags" are good ideas. A "bob" is a backpack or other container (backbacks are good in case you get stuck on foot), that has enough critical essentials to keep you alive for a week or so, enough even on foot to get you out of the disaster area most likely. It's called a bug-out bag from the old army term, and it is designed so if you have zero notice-hear on the radio local railroad has a tanker car full of chlorine leaking, nasty forest fire heading your way, and it's close, etc, that you can grab it and go, out the door within less than one minute. Very high speed emergency evacuation. The deal is, you hope you never need it, but if you do, it literally could save your life.
Interesting subject, and although it is not directly related to the main parent IT topic, the concept is very similar.
Zombie invasion (and peer DR) (Score:2)
BTW, back in 1993, we used to hold annual DR swaps with another federal agency who had similar systems to our own. We also had an MOU to mirror critical data and use each others facilities in case our primary site was hosed. (or is that swarming with the walking undead?)
Xix.
So when the RIAA/MPAA come a knockin... (Score:2)
Now see, if they were smart (Score:1)
RIAA (Score:1)
"a continent away"...? (Score:2)
A few thoughts (Score:2)
It's also problematic because exchange experts are few and far between. But then again how many sendmail or qmail experts are there?
I wonder though - are they using exchange just for e-mail? Or are they using it for scheduling, shared folders, etc.? I can't see implementing shared schedules university wide and only receiving 8 help desk calls. You'd think more than 8 people would be c
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And? (Score:1, Insightful)
BoxBackup... (Score:2)
A friend and I have been talking about this. He's on the west coast too, but about 1000 miles away, so my backups would probably be safe.
http://www.fluffy.co.uk/boxbackup/ [fluffy.co.uk]
Any one using this?
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I didn't ever finish setting it up and getting it running, but I can't remember off the top of my head what problem I must have run into. I think I got distracted by the prospect of setting up ext3cow, which is an automatic timeshifting/versioning filesystem (but it pretty early/beta, not for production) and generally ADDed out.
I should go back and take another look at it. One of the things I really liked was that it was developed
SunGard beware! (Score:1)
I wish we could do a similar setup where I work(a hospital system). But, HIPPA regs would prob nail both parties/partners to the rulebook cross
Recycling Past Ideas (Score:1)
Sounds like something the defense department might be interested in.
Wonder what they'll call it?
There's already FOSS software for it! (Score:1)
Great news for those who want to follow: We run such a service for our customers. Using Askemos for tamper proofed process replication [askemos.org] we run a network of nodes owned by several companies.
We have a peering agreement, no matter what dies, be it a host or even a hosting company, our customers websites continue to run - undisturbed.
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I'd like to see Microsoft broken up the way AT&T was a few decades ago, but for real. Not, however, because their Exchange Server sucks. Vista is a different story, of course, and is a real dog. But, by automatically being critical of every product, the "I hate everything Microso
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I use all three (outlook, IE and firefox) to read my mail and manage my calendar.
exchange in outlook and IE is verry similar but in firefox it's missing most of the basic functionality like flagging a message and decent search.
on the other hand, when not using firefox for it, it's actualy has several good features that I haven't found elswhere tho, the fact that it's easy to sync. the calendar between the exchange server and a pocket pc being one of them.
Blasting Exchange (Score:2)
Same can be said about Windows, can it not? Certainly "mature", right? And with 95% of the desktops running it, there is no argument, that it is anything, but a standard.
Just like the rest of Microsoft products, Exchange is very appealing on the surface of it and from the start. Then the real problems start creeping in and soon you can't buy new hardware fast enough to keep the piece of crap runni
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Lol... (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, as a system admin who's business does not have any kind of secondary solution (no hot/hot, no hot/cold, etc) I'd still be leery of trusting my data or my lively hood to a peer and an admin team I didn't know. Maybe this works better in academia
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Of course, if they had the expertise, they'd do it in house... And I'd be out a client...
Given a "peer" for backups whose not a competitor, but in a different vertical market might work, provided the trust aspects would be met
Re:Lol... (Score:5, Funny)
Rumor has it they've been in bed together for years.
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If your parents are Ma Bell and Uncle Sam, then your family tree has a forking bug...
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Are you really ruling out my having any expertise based on my application of it to my family?..
So, you — while admitting to have no disaster-recovery plans/setups — feel comfortable enough to talk about anyone else's "expertise"?..
Oblig grammer nazi (Score:3, Funny)
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It's not as bad as it was (Score:2)
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The only issue now is with poorly trained admins who still try to run brick-level backups or use ExMerge as their backup tool. MS has repeated told admins not to do this since Exchange 2000, and there are still backup programs that tell you to do it this way. You *will* break something using that method. It's akin to backing up a 500 table data
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