I did a search and came up with many different opinions and suggestions, and I could not find any similar threads for this (if there is I must apoligize in advance and did not look hard enough).

I am trying to create a backup schedule for client computers and servers; and I would like your opinion on what I came up with. Here is network infrastrusture setup:

16 client computers
6 serevrs
- Primary and Secondary Web Server (RAID 1)
- Primary and Secondary Domain Controller (RAID 1)
- File/Print Server (RAID 5)
- Backup Server (RAID 1) with USB 2.0 1TB External Drive

Of course I will evetually upgrade to Tape Drives, but I am saving up for that. Anyways I want to backup ALL client computers, Primary Web and DC server, and File/Print Server. This will be done (of course) on the Backup Server) Here is the schedule:

- Full Backup (every 60 days)
- Incremental Backup (everyday)
- Snapshot (every 2 hours) NOTE: This is for client only NOT server

Would you think this is a good schedule? If not, please make suggestions and reccomendations for me.

Also, I was thinking of doing a Synthetic Full Backup? I was thinking of doing this on the 30 day mark but keep the full backup until the 60 day mark. Then do a full backup on the machine, delete all the previous full, incremental, and snapshhot backups and start the process over.

Again, suggestions and reccomendations would be appreciated.

OH, maybe it is important to mention the sofwtare:
- Client are mixed with Windows XP and 7
- Server are CentOS
- Backup software is Bacula.

If you know of a better Open Source Linux Backup software that does full and incremental backups as well as snapshots, let me know.

Thanks for all of your help on this.

Most places I've been do a full backup at least once a week then incrementals for small backups daily and cummulative incrementals for larger backups daily.

When deciding on a backup strategy the important thing to think about is NOT the backup but rather the restore. What is your SLA for getting a system back on line? Do you really want to restore a full backup that is 59 days old then have to restore each of 59 individual incrementals on top of that? How much time will this take?

Synthetic full backups might be a good idea if they allow you to create a single restore medium. Snapshots are good for quick restores unless the disk system contains both the original data and the snapshot - what happens when that disk system goes down?

Different types of backups might require different decisions. If it is a database system how are you backing it up? Is there a cold backup requiring down time of the database? Are you allowed to have downtime? Is there a hot backup methodology? How long does a cold backup take? What happens during a hot backup - is there sufficient ability of the database to commit changes after the hot backup without impacting performance?

You make a good point about 59 days of data. Having only 7 days of data would be better, so I will follow your reccomendation and norm and do a full backup every week and incremental backups everyday. Of course the full backup will be done on a weekend and at night.

My SLA is the following:
- We have two different ISP providers: Primary and Secondary. If ISP goes down, the other one will kick in. Of course in the unliekly event both ISP goes down, we have a contract with both that we get priority and they garantee we will be up in 1-2 hours at the most.
- If a client computer crashes and requires a backup, what we do is get a new hard drive (we keep some extras in the shop), do a full and inremental restore on the new hard drive (usually takes about 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on the size of data course), and just swap hard drives on their computers. This way, the client is up and running in less than 3 hours.