The traditional tape backup solution for backing up Microsoft Servers has several inherent problems. First, someone has to swap tapes daily. Second, tape drive requires regular maintenance, such as cleaning and replacing worn tapes. In general there is a lot of “messing about” with a tape backup system. On top of all that, backup and recovery is a slow process, because the server needs to be “rebuilt,” and the backup application reinstalled, before full recovery can happen. There are better software packages that speed up this process using server images. But on average, you should expect to lose an entire day if there is a full server crash that needs to be recovered.
Because of these problems, there has been a strong movement towards replacing tape backup solutions. Online options, for example, have come onto the market. They alleviate some of the messing about, since they are generally “no touch” systems. You install them and they run in the background, continuously, during set hours. These systems work great and are generally cost effective, but there will be some subscription fees involved in storing data offsite. The main problem with them is the recovery process. Recovering from a complete server crash can take days, because recovering all the data through the Internet takes a long time. Instead, most offsite backup locations will just send you a hard drive with your data. This is a major issue if you need to get going within hours.
The best recovery solution is a virtual machine backup, one that does backups onsite. It operates like a tape drive, but when the server crashes, you can switch it to virtual machine mode, and within 15 – 30 minutes it will act like your original server. Granted, the crashed server needs to be rebuilt, restored, and eventually put back online. But the downtime will be minimal. Offsite storage is available for this solution as well, so it can become a “no touch” system.