Backup Windows Server 2003, part 2

Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction
What is backup?
Types of backups
Volume Shadow Copy Technology
Permissions
System state data
Restore system state data
Backup data
Where are the log files?
Restore data
Use the Restore and Manage Media tab
Advanced options
Recovery Console
Install Recovery Console
Remove Recovery Console
Automated System Recovery
Create an ASR set
Recover using ASR

Backup data

We will use this backup scheme to create our backups.

Day	Type of backup
Friday night	Full backup (normal)
Saturday night	Incremental, files and folders only
Sunday night	Incremental, files and folders only
Monday night	Incremental, files and folders only
Tuesday night	Incremental, files and folders only
Wednesday night	Incremental, files and folders only
Thursday night	Incremental, files and folders only

Designing a good backup scheme is not always as simple as you might think. Questions like, what should I backup and when should I back it up occurs. The answer to these questions varies for every network and every server. Say that you will back up a Domain Controller and you add objects to Active Directory all the time. Then the above scheme would not be recommended. You’ll have to backup System State data at least one more time during the week (if not every day). The above scheme does likewise not have to apply web servers. You’ll have to find out when the load is as low as possible on the web server and use this information to find out what kind of backup scheme you want to use. Here are some general rules:

Backup when the load is as low as possible
If System State data is changed frequently, back it up more often
If files and folders are changed often, perform Full Backup more often
You will most likely have to perform backups beside this scheme. When doing this, if it is possible, do not use Full Backup or Incremental Backup because it can disturb the normal backup scheme (files are marked as already backed up). Sooner or later you won’t know where files are and it can be very time-consuming to restore.
Consider what you think is most important, a fast backup or to be able to restore fast, you cannot have both these features.

Click Start->Run and type ntbackup
Click the Advanced Mode link
Click Backup Wizard (Advanced)
Click Next
Make sure Back up everything on this computer is selected and click Next

We will backup to a file, you can place it wherever you want, just make sure you name it Friday and click Next

Click Advanced
Make sure Normal is selected as type of backup and click Next

Check the box Verify data after backup and click Next (You will most likely have errors when the backup is completed and verified. This is because System State data is changed all the time. If there are too many errors, there might be problems with the file you are using to back up data.)
Click Replace the existing backups and click Next

Click Later and in the Job Name box type Friday Nights, click Set Schedule
In Schedule Task select Weekly and as Start time 11:00 PM (or whenever you want the backup to be scheduled). Make sure it’s set to run every 1 week and on Fridays. Click OK

You will be prompted to run the task as a user. Use a user with privileges to backup data.
Click Next
Click Finish

The Backup Wizard should close and you should be back in the Backup Utility. You can now verify that the backup is scheduled by clicking on the Schedule Jobs tab.

In case you want to edit the backup you can do it from here. Just click the backup symbol on the day you want to edit.

Click the Welcome tab and start the Backup Wizard again.
Click Next
Select Backup selected files, drives or network data and click Next
Expand My Computer in the left pane and select all drives (in my case C: and D:) and click Next

Name it Monday and click Next
Click Advanced
Select Incremental as type of backup and click Next
Check the box Verify data after backup and click Next
Click Replace the existing backups and click Next
Click Later and in the Job Name box type Monday Nights, click Set Schedule
In Scheduled Task select Weekly and as Start time 11:00 PM (or whenever you want the backup to be scheduled). Make sure it’s set to run every 1 week and on Mondays.
Click Advanced and set the Start Date the same day as when the full backup will run. In my case that is January 03, 2003, so that is the start date I choose. Click OK, click OK
You will be prompted to run the task as a user. Use a user with privileges to backup data.
Click Next
Click Finish

Use the steps above to create incremental backups for the other five days of week. Of course all this can be done by writing a script, but I’ll leave that for now. And again, this is only a suggestion for a backup strategy. A backup strategy varies from company to company and it is not something you develop in one hour. You must analyze and find out what fits your company best. Also remember that if you followed the steps above, you will only save the backup files for a week. This is probably not what you want, and you have to schedule a script to move the files every week.

Where are the log files?

Of course you should read the log files so you are sure that the backup was successful. You do this be looking in Event Viewer for error messages, and you can also read a complete report by clicking Report on the Tools menu. If you want to log more or less, take a look in the Options on the Tools menu, and click on the Backup Log tab.

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