Implement automatic backup & recovery

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Implement automatic backup & recovery

Overview
A key concern for business owners and managers is data protection. Organizations face stiff repercussions if their data is lost, stolen or seriously compromised.
This How-to Guide helps you understand data backup and recovery options for micro businesses. You'll learn how to create backups, schedule them to run automatically, capture entire server images and recover files using Windows Server Backup in Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation. You'll also get tips for ensuring the files are reliable if you need to recover them to your server.
The sections of the guide include:
Understand it: Explore backup and recovery concepts and data protection options.
Plan it: determine which backup method and schedule is best for your environment.
Do it: Create a bare metal recovery image and custom backups, and learn how to schedule automated backups.
Use it: Find out how to ensure your backup files are error-free, and restore files and images.

Understand it
Because data is one of the most valuable assets for most organizations, data backups are critical to ensuring business continuity and securing customer information. Data loss can occur for a variety of reasons–natural disasters, disgruntled employees, hardware malfunctions and accidental erasure. Losing a day's worth of data can put an organization behind schedule; losing even a week's worth of data can be devastating to an organization's bottom line and reputation. It's essential for organizations to plan for disaster recovery; file and system backups are key to any disaster recovery plan.
Note: Organizations that handle federally or state-regulated information can also incur penalties for improper protection of sensitive data.
To avoid data loss, you should configure client computers to store all critical business files centrally, such as on a server, and keep the server backed up regularly. Using Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation, you can host business applications and provide file and printer sharing to users, among other services. Because all files, services and settings are stored in a central location rather than spread across workstations, backup and recovery processes are streamlined.
Be sure to store a copy of backup files offsite, such as on media in a protected vault or using a cloud service. An offsite copy ensures that you are protected if a disaster strikes in the facility where the server and its primary backups are located.
Types of data to back up
The main types of data on a server that need protection are application (user) data, applications, the system state and the operating system itself. User data may include documents, spreadsheets, photos, and so on that the user saves directly to a server folder. It may also include backups of the client computers—if they're configured to back up to the server. The system state contains the operating system configuration and settings files.
You can store application data or client computer backups on a separate disk, or volume, in your server, to separate it from the disk that contains the operating system, system state and applications. This makes backing up data easier, and ensures that a problem with one disk doesn't affect the files on the other disk. The backup process compresses all files you choose to back up, and saves them to a location of your choice.
Using Windows Server Backup, you create an initial backup, and then the software creates incremental backups after that. An incremental backup backs up files or portions of files that have changed since the last backup, minimizing the space required to store backup files.
Windows Server Backup lets you create two primary types of backups:
•  A full server backup, with the bare metal recovery option selected, serves as an image backup, which is a replica of the system at a point in time. It includes the operating system, system state, installed applications and application data. If the entire server system must be restored, you would use the bare metal recovery files. You would then restore incremental backups made after that point to bring the server to a current state. The ability to restore an entire server from backup versus installing and configuring the server can save hours of time, and allow users to access files much more quickly.
•  A custom backup lets you choose to back up application data on the server, an entire volume and/or system state (server settings). This allows you to restore only data or the system state, if needed, rather than the entire server.
Note: Windows Server Backup allows you to back up the system state separately from other files or as part of a complete backup set. System state backups use shadow copies for versioning, similar to volume-based backups.
Popular data protection options
This guide focuses on Windows Server Backup in Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation. However, you can purchase and install third-party data protection software if you prefer. Most backup software works with the hardware and media described in this section.
Windows Server Backup backs up to internal and external disks, optical media such as DVDs and remote shared folders; the software does not support backups to tape devices. You can store system state backups on an attached hard drive, a volume or a remote shared folder but not on optical or removable media. Backing up to disk (referred to as a disk-to-disk backup) or over the network is generally faster than using other media.
Note: If you choose to dedicate an attached disk for backups, the first time you use the disk, Windows Server Backup formats it and overwrites all data.
Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) is a data protection technology that stores data on two or more disks simultaneously for redundancy. Many but not all servers come with built-in RAID technology. Even with RAID, you must still back up data and store copies offsite to ensure complete protection.

Plan it
The ideal backup plan calls for continuous backup of data files and a daily image or full backup of your server. However, as the number of files increase, creating daily images and full backups will not be practical. It can take several hours and even more than a day to create a full server backup, depending on the amount of stored data.
An appropriate server backup plan is:
•  Create an initial full server backup with bare metal recovery (an image).
•  Create an initial full backup of application data.
•  Perform daily incremental backups of application data.
•  Schedule weekly backups of application data and the system state.
•  Create a monthly bare metal recovery image.
Consider running full backups of application data and bare metal recovery images overnight or during a weekend. To avoid performance issues for end users, run daily incremental backups overnight.
The decision as to which type of media to use depends on the amount of data you need to back up. Only the smallest of organizations can use DVDs efficiently to back up server files. A better choice is an external disk with 1 terabyte or higher capacity or a remote shared folder.
Note: A client computer that runs Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate or Enterprise Edition can use the native Windows Backup program to back up directly to a network drive. (Other editions of Windows 7 do not include the network option.) This approach allows the user to save data files on the local computer but still be protected by a server backup. Windows Backup backs up both data files and user settings. You can also create a system image of the computer's drive and save it to removable media or transfer it to network storage. It's a best practice to create a system image of a client computer, and then enable automatic daily backups of user data and settings. You should recapture a system image whenever the client computer undergoes a major change, such as the installation of new software, to be able to restore the computer quickly if needed.
You should store copies of weekly backups offsite, rotating media back into the cycle after four weeks or deleting old backup sets from network storage. However, keep copies of monthly backups and an annual backup in the offsite location during the rotation process.

Do it
Automated backups give you the flexibility to set them once and let them run themselves thereafter. This section shows you how to create and schedule backups, and create a bare- metal recovery image.
Install the Windows Server Backup Snap-in
Windows Server Backup is a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in in Windows Server systems. The snap-in is not installed by default in Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation.
To install the snap-in:
1.  Click Start > Administrative Tools > Server Manager.
2.  In the Features Summary section, click Add Features. The Add Features Wizard starts.
3.  Scroll down the list, expand Windows Server Backup Features, select the Windows Server Backup checkbox and then press Enter.
4.  In the next screen, click Install.
Create a bare metal recovery image
To create a bare metal recovery image:
1.  Click Start > Administrative Tools > Windows Server Backup. The Windows Server Backup window appears (see Figure 1).
2.  Click Backup Once in the Actions pane on the right.
3.  In the Backup Once Wizard, click Next.
The main Windows Server Backup window.
Figure 1: The main Windows Server Backup window.
4.  Choose whether to create a full server or custom backup. The Full server option backs up all server data, applications and the system state. The Custom option enables you to select specific volumes and files to back up. For this example, leave the Full server option selected and click Next.
5.  In the Select Items for Backup screen, click Add Items. Figure 2 shows a portion of the Select Items screen.
6.  Select the Bare metal recovery checkbox to automatically select all options.
7.  Click OK and then click Next. Choose whether to save the backup to a local drive or a remote shared folder, and then choose the specific location to store the backup.
7.  When you're ready, click Backup.
Backup options
Figure 2: Backup options.
Note: To perform backups or recoveries using Windows Server Backup, you must be a member of the Administrators or Backup Operators groups.
Back up application data and the system state
The steps for backing up application data only or the system state are similar to the above with a few exceptions.
Select the Custom option in the wizard, and then click through the folder tree in the Select Items screen to select only the files or folders to be backed up. Or select System state in the Select Items screen. Follow the prompts to select the backup destination and then click Backup.
Schedule backups
To schedule backups to run automatically, click Backup Schedule in the Actions pane of the main Windows Server Backup window. Follow the prompts in the wizard as you did to create a bare metal recovery image.
If you choose the Custom option to select specific files or folders to back up, you may also exclude certain items such as .tmp files to make your backup sets smaller. On the Select Items for Backup screen, click Advanced Settings. On the Exclusions tab, click Add Exclusion and then expand the folder tree and select items you want to exclude. Click OK.
On the Specify Backup Time screen (Figure 3), select how often you want the backup to occur and the time it should start. You can change this schedule at any time.
Backup Time screen
You can back up to a dedicated hard disk, a volume or a shared network folder. If you are backing up to a dedicated disk, be aware that the scheduled backup process will overwrite any data on the disk and use the disk exclusively for backup purposes from that point forward. Also, if the disk doesn't appear in the list of disks to select from, click Show All Available Disks (or Show All Available Devices) and select it there. Once you select the disk for backup purposes, it will no longer appear in Windows Explorer to prevent you from overwriting data accidentally.

Use it
Although your backups are running on schedule, you need to ensure that the backed up data is recoverable. In this section, find out how to verify the reliability of your backup files and images, and then learn how to recover them in the event of a disaster.
Check your backup files
Performing regular backups and keeping copies offsite still won't protect your data if the backups themselves are corrupt or incomplete. You should check your backups for errors every few days or at least once a week.
In the main Windows Server Backup window, click the View details link for a backup in the Status section. If any errors are indicated, search for the word "error" in the report log. You can also open Event Viewer to view backup events and errors. Determine whether any errors involve critical files, and then use Windows Explorer to locate the files and determine whether they need to be repaired or replaced.
Note: Another option is to purchase a third-party tool that verifies the integrity of backup files.
Recover files or the system state from a backup
Recovering files or the system state from a backup is a simple task in Windows Server Backup.
1.  In Windows Server Backup, in the Actions pane, click Recover. In the Recovery Wizard, follow the prompts to select the location of the backup files.
2.  If you have multiple backups, select the date and time of the backup you want to use for the recovery.
3.  If you choose to recover files and folders, select the specific items you want to restore in the folder tree. You can restore the items to their original location(s), or to a new location and create copies.
4.  To recover the system state, you can choose to recover to the original location or restore files to an alternate location. Most often, you will recover to the original location, and you must restart the server after the recovery for the changes to take effect.
5.  When you're ready, click Recover.
Note: Don't stop a system state recovery once it starts. If you attempt to do so, you may not be able to boot the server system.
Perform a bare metal recovery
Recovering your entire server system is more complicated, understandably, than simply restoring application data. The process of recovering your server's system requires the Windows Recovery Environment, a bare metal recovery backup that you created using Windows Server Backup and the Windows Setup disc.
The following are a few considerations before you begin:
•  To recover the operating system only, locate a backup that contains the server's critical volumes (volumes containing operating system components), at a minimum.
•  If you had to replace the server's hard disk, the new disk must be at least as big as the disk that contained the volumes that were backed up.
To access the Windows Recovery Environment:
1.  Insert your Windows Setup disc into your CD/DVD drive, restart your server hardware and then press F8 (or the key that enables you to boot from disc) when the computer begins to boot.
2.  The Install Windows Wizard should start automatically. Respond to the prompts until you reach the screen with the Repair your computer option. Click Repair your computer.
3.  When the System Recovery Options screen appears, click System Image Recovery. You can choose to use the latest available system image or restore from a different backup. To use your bare metal recovery backup, follow the prompts to locate and select it.
4.  You will be prompted to format and repartition disks. If you do so, existing data will be overwritten, so ensure you have a backup of all data before you continue. If your server has multiple disks, you may choose which disks are excluded. The disk that contains the backup you're using is automatically excluded. When excluding disks, ensure you can see all of the disks attached to the server. If you do not, install the drivers for the storage devices.
Note: You should not exclude the boot disk, usually referred to as Disk 0. If you exclude the boot disk, Windows tries to perform the recovery on the next disk, Disk 1, which ordinarily contains files that the BIOS requires. If those files are missing, the computer won't start.
Continue following the prompts in the wizard to complete the recovery. The recovery should be successful as long as all the critical volumes are recovered, allowing the system to restart.
For complete details on restoring a server in Windows Server 2008 R2, read the Recover the Operating System or Full Server article in Microsoft TechNet.