On 2/18/2011 6:05 AM, Alan Brown wrote:
> On 18/02/11 03:08, Randy Katz wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> This is clearly off topic so flame away if need be!
> It's not off topic at all.
>
> There have been a number of discussions and approaches to trying to keep
> clients backed up, especially laptops.
>
> Backuppc works, but backing the resulting fileserver tree up to tape is
> problematic as it's constantly updating files (mtime or hardlink counts)
> which otherwise wouldn't need to be hit.
>
> A coherent approach to this issue is really needed. It's been on my mind
> for some time as I have a large stack of windows desktops and laptops
> which need attention - especially laptops as they get dropped or stolen
> far more often than any other kind of machine.

I deal with Windows and Mac laptops. Some users are out of country for 
weeks. Some do quite a bit of work from a home office. The key is 
letting go of the idea that you can backup these machines as you would a 
server or even local LAN workstation. It just is not possible. I 
currently use a two-factor backup strategy for these machines, along 
with user policy/education. The latter is the difficult part, though 
most of "my" users hold PhDs.

-- Factor 1 --
Run daily incrementals and weekly virtual fulls. The incrementals fail 
often due to the laptop being unavailable. The virtual fulls perpetuate 
a full backup that can be used to restore a broken, lost, or stolen 
laptop to at least some reasonably usable state. When available and time 
permits, I run a manual full.

-- Factor 2 --
Provide users with network shares where they should keep their critical 
files. These of course get backed up with the file server.

Access to the network shares is via VPN. Users can either copy files to 
their laptop or work directly with the file on the share, depending on 
connectivity, but they realize that the "safe" copy is always the one on 
the network share. This has worked out fairly well. The users are happy 
not to have to rely so much on the files on their laptop. I am less 
worried about data loss. Basically, I feel that the best way to deal 
with laptops is to treat them, as far as possible, as dumb terminals 
that are likely to break or go missing at any moment.


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