Overview

As environmental activists become increasingly dependent on email and databases for their day-to-day operations, effective backup routines become even more critical. Imagine, for a moment, what would happen if a hard drive crash wiped out your organization's membership database, your accounting files, or your last month's worth of email. What if you had a major virus infestation? What if your computers were destroyed by fire or stolen? For many organizations, a "data catastrophe" could cause serious damage to the organization. Investing time, energy and money in a backup system that works can help insure you against the lost of the irreplaceable information that has become one of our movement's most valuable assets.

Five tips for using Retrospect effectively

ONE/Northwest generally recommends that organizations with more than 3-4 computers use Retrospect Workgroup Backup software. Retrospect is unique among low-cost backup programs because it includes Retrospect Client, which you install on each of your workstations, and allows the main Retrospect program to access any and all files on your machines, regardless of whether or not they are shared. This makes it much easier to automate backups of all key data files on every machine on your network.

Retrospect Workgroup Backup is an extremely powerful (and somewhat complex) program. Following are some specific suggestions for using it in typical environmental office situations.

We also note that Retrospect also makes products that are well-suited for backing up individual computers (Retrospect Express) and for very large networks (Retrospect Server Backup).

Retrospect Tip #1: Create 2 or 3 rotating backup sets

Rotating a set of backups off-site helps insure you against fire, flood and break-in. We think that an ideal backup strategy has three backup sets -- one that is "live," one that is on-hand, and one that is off-site. Assuming you're rotating backups each week, this means that the current week's backup is "live in the drive," last week's backup are in a safety deposit box or a fire safe, and the backup set from two weeks ago is close at hand, preferably in a fire safe.

Retrospect Tip #2: Use "Recycle" backups at the beginning of the week to erase your tapes

Retrospect has three kinds of backups it can perform: "Normal," "Recycle" and "New Media." These terms are a bit unintuitive, but once you understand them, it will help you manage your backup sets much more effectively.

A "Normal" backup appends the backup data to whatever is already on the tape. Normal backups NEVER erase, re-use or write over existing data on a tape. When a tape fills up, Retrospect prompts you to put in a new tape, and adds that tape to the current backup set. For example, you have a backup set called "Backup Set A," and you only perform "Normal" backups, that tape will quickly fill up, and then Retrospect will ask you to add a new, blank tape to the backup set, and it will label the tape "2-Backup Set A." The other key thing to know about Normal backups is that they only backup files that are new or changed since the last Normal backup.

A "Recycle" backup tells Retrospect to ERASE the tape before starting the backup. All old data will be wiped off the tape, and then the backup proceeds just like a Normal backup -- except that because you've just erased the tape, ALL files will be backed up during a Recycle backup.

A "New Media" backup requires a new, never-used backup tape. It's not something you'd typically use, unless you're planning to periodically pull tapes out of your backup rotation for "deep storage." (Not a bad idea, but it's advanced concept that goes beyond the scope of this article.)

To sum up the key concepts:

• A "Recycle" backup erases the tape and backs up all files.
• A "Normal" backup adds new and changed files onto the end of the tape.

How should you apply this? Well, we think it makes sense to start your week off with a Recycle backup -- erasing the tape you've just rotated in from your off-site storage. Then, for the rest of the week, you should perform Normal backups -- adding on new and changed files to the tape. This makes efficient use of the limited tape storage space, and at the end of the week, you've got a tape that contains all of your data from each day that week. Starting off each week with a Recycle backup means that you can continue using tapes indefinitely without worrying that they'll fill up. This helps keep media costs down.

Erasing tapes manually

Sometimes, you may need to erase a tape manually. Retrospect allows you to do this by going to Tools>Devices. Put the tape to be erased in the drive. It should appear in the Devices display window. Then click the Erase button -- it's the button in toolbar that looks like an eraser. (Labels will pop up if you hover your mouse over each button.) It's a good idea to erase new tapes before you use them in your backup routine.

Retrospect Tip #3: Ways to get only the files you need

One of the keys to an effective backup routine is to keep the total amount of data you're backing up under control by making sure your backup routine includes only the most important files. (See above more more detail on what files to back up.) Retrospect offers you two ways to target your backups precisely: Selectors and Subvolumes.

Selectors

Selectors let you tell Retrospect to back up only files that match specific criteria. Retrospect comes with a number of built-in Selectors, and you can define custom Selectors. For example, one built-in Selector is the "Documents" Selector which backs up only the files contained in Windows' "My Documents" folder (or, on the Mac, in any folder named "Documents"). Selectors can define files based on their name, their type, the name of the folder they're in, and many other criteria. Selectors can also include (or exclude) other Selectors, allowing to build powerful and complex "compound" Selectors.

To define a Selector, go to Special>Selectors.

The cool thing about Selectors is that you can back up files without needing to know exactly where on the hard drive they are. For example, you could create a Selector to back up all Outlook email files on a hard drive by selecting all files named "*.pst."

Subvolumes

By default, Retrospect backs up the entire hard drive of each machine you select to back up. You can use Retrospect's "Subvolumes" feature to define specific subfolders of a hard drive as the source for a backup. For example, you might define your "My Documents" folder as a Subvolume, or the folder where you store your email files, or your database folder.

You can combine Selectors and Subvolumes in a backup script, but the key thing to keep in mind is that a Selector will apply to all the sources/subvolumes named in that script. That is you, can't create a script that uses a Subvolume to back up all the files in the My Documents folder and also backs up all files named *.pst on the hard drive using a Selector.

Thus, we recommend that you create two backup scripts -- one to back up specific important places using Subvolumes, and one to backup certain types of documents using Selectors. A good way to manage this is to train your to staff to save all of their documents in the "My Documents" folder in Windows, or the "Documents" folder on the Mac. Then, you can use the "Documents" Selector in Retrospect to easily back up the contents of those folders. You can then modify the Selector to also include the folder that contains your email (see above for details on finding email files for different email programs.)

Retrospect Tip #4: Backing up laptops with Backup Server scripts

Laptops pose a special backup challenge. Often, laptops go home at night with their owners, making them hard to back up with a normal backup script that runs overnight. Fortunately, Retrospect has a Backup Server feature that allows you to back up laptops when they reconnect to the network, rather than on a specific fixed schedule.

What this means is that you don't have to make sure that your laptops be in the office at a specific time or day when the backup script is going to run. The Backup Server lets your laptops get backed up when they're in the office, while your desktops and servers are backed up on a fixed schedule.

For a complete overview of Backup Server scripts, which are separate from the normal backup scripts discussed above, see your Retrospect manual. Once you're familiar with the concept, we recommend that you configure a Backup Server script to automatically back up the key files on your laptops at least weekly. Dantz also has a nice tutorial module on Backup Server scripts at http://www.dantz.com/index.php3?SCREEN=tutorial_bus1.

Retrospect Tip #5: Monitoring backups

Monitoring your backups to make sure they're working properly is an essential part of your backup routine. Each day, you should take a few minutes to launch Retrospect and check Reports>Reports to see if Retrospect encountered any significant errors in its last backup. If you find more than a few errors, double-click the item to view the detailed Log entry. The Retrospect manual can help you understand what Retrospect's error codes mean, and offers many helpful troubleshooting solutions.

It's also a good idea to perform occasional restore tests to make sure that you can restore data properly. Dantz has a nice tutorial on performing restores at http://www.dantz.com/index.php3?SCREEN=tutorial_ir1.

Where email files are stored on your computer(s)

The following matrix gives you all the information you should need to locate the email files for a variety of commonly-used email programs.

Moving email files

Some email programs bury their email files deep in your hard drive. Outlook and Outlook Express for Windows are the worst offenders. One way you can make it easier to backup your staff's email files is to move them to the "My Documents" folder. Different email programs have different ways to move their mail files (summarized above).

If you're concerned that folks might unwittingly delete the mail files from their My Documents folder, you can "hide" the files to make them invisible. Simply right-click on the files, choose properties, and then check the box marked "Hidden."

However, if you have a Windows 2000 file server, and are using Group Policy to redirect My Documents folders to the server, don't store mail files in the My Documents folder. Synchronizing such large files to the server can cause problems.

Troubleshooting Retrospect

Backups can be finicky, and a lot can go wrong. The best place to start if something's not right is to look closely at the Log (Reports>Log), and try to figure out exactly what's tripping Retrospect up. Is it because a file is "in use?" Is it because Retrospect couldn't communicate with a backup client? Is it because there was a problem with a tape?

The single best resource for troubleshooting tips is -- perhaps surprisingly -- the Retrospect manual. If you haven't read it before, GO FIND IT NOW! Seriously -- we've read a lot of computer manuals, and the Retrospect manual stands out as a great example of documentation that's written in plain English for normal human beings. We strongly encourage you to spend some time browsing through Retrospect manual.

Another good resource is Dantz's support Web site. It offers a variety of resources, including a knowledge base, tutorials, a discussion form, and ways to contact their support staff.

Retrospect Technical Support can be found at:

http://www.dantz.com/