Tag Archives: Backup

Synchronizing Files Between Windows Servers

I am sure you have needed to copy files from one server to another. Sometimes it is sufficient to use Windows Explorer across a UNC path and do a simple copy and paste. With that simplicity comes the lack of control and advanced features. Two great free options exist that can be set to run as a scheduled task in a simple batch file, XCOPY and Robocopy.

If you are familiar with XCopy, you know that it has a variety of parameters that can be configured to meet many of your business requirements. If you need more advanced features then Robocopy will most likely meet your needs. You can think of Robocopy as XCOPY on steroids, providing features that tolerate network interruptions, skip identical files, and so forth. The latest version also includes multithread copying.

Robocopy and XCopy are both good solutions to keep a backup copy of your files in a remote location. When your requirements include the need to synchronize the same files across multiple servers, you can setup multiple Robocopy jobs that keep files in sync in multiple directions. That can quickly turn into an administrative nightmare.

Fortunately there is another technology that makes this an easy task to accomplish and administer known as Distributed File System (DFS). This technology started to come to maturity with the release of Windows Server 2003 R2 and continues to improve with each release of Windows Server, including Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012 (also known as Windows Server 8). While there are a multitude of guides on the Internet about DFS including all of the different features and configuration options, I want to hone in on a simple feature that many of us come across regularly; the need to keep a set of files and folders synchronized across multiple servers.

Before we start you should note that in order to properly use DFS, the servers need to be part of an Active Directory Domain. If they are not then you either need to add them to a domain or fall back to using Robocopy or XCopy. In this demo we will be synchronizing a single folder across two servers.

The first step is to install the DFS Role on each of the servers that you want to synchronize files between. In Server Manager, highlight Roles in the left tree view and select Add Roles under Roles Summary.

Roles Summary

This brings up the Add Roles Wizard. On the Select Server Roles page, check the box beside File Services and click Next.

Files Services

On the Select Role Services screen, check the box for DFS Replication. For this scenario we don’t need DFS Namespaces. Click Next.

DFS NameSpaces

Now you will finish the steps of the wizard to install DFS Replication. Once you have DFS Replication installed on each of the servers, we can move forward with configuring DFS Replication.On the server, click Start -> Administrative Tools -> DFS Management. This opens up the DFS Management console. Right click Replication and choose New Replication Group.

DFS Management

You are now presented with the New Replication Group Wizard. Stay with the default selection of Multipurpose replication group and click next.

Replication Group Type

At the next screen give the replication group a meaningful name. You will notice that your default Active Directory domain is set. If not, click Browse… to select it.

Name and Domains

Next select two or more servers that you want to synchronize files across. Click Add and look up the servers in Active Directory. Once you have the servers selected click Next.

Replication Group Members

For the topology, we will select Full mesh. That allows the files to stay in sync between all of the servers regardless of where the file is updated. You will note that to use Hub and spoke, you need at least three servers and it increases the complexity of your DFS environment. I have only had a couple of scenarios where I have needed to use Hub and spoke.

Topology Selection

At this screen you can limit the bandwidth and even configure DFS to run on a schedule. Since we are on an intranet network we’re going to use full bandwidth and we want to keep the files in sync all the time so the default options work well for us. Click Next after you have configured this to your liking.

Replication Group Schedule and Bandwidth

Next we need to select the Primary member. Full mesh topology treats all servers as equals and keeps all the files synchronized nearly instantaneously after the first synchronization is complete and the DFS database is built. For the first synchronization, though, DFS needs to know which server to set as the primary member if there are file conflicts. In that case, it treats the files on the Primary member as the master files just this one time. After the initial synchronization there is no longer a Primary member. Click Next after selecting your Primary member.



Primary Member

It is time for us to select the folders that we want to replicate. Click the Add… button to bring up another window. Click the Browse… button to pick a local folder on this server to replicate. You can use the automatically generated name of the folder or pick a custom name if needed. You will note that you can also set custom permissions. From my experience the default existing permissions will work in most situations. Click the Next button when you’ve picked the local folder.

Folders to Replicate

You are now presented with a screen for the other server that you selected in the replication group. You will note that the local path is not set and it is disabled. Make sure it is highlighted and click the Edit… button. Here you will select enabled and choose the local folder on the remote server. While you can set a target path on the remote server that is different than the path on the local server, I recommend that you keep the paths the same on both servers to simplify management. Click OK and then Next.

Local Path of Temp on other Members

You are presented with the final screen that gives you one last chance to review what you have selected. Once you have reviewed the settings, click the Create button. You will be prompted with a reminder that it will take some time for the initial replication to occur. From my experience it usually takes from 15 – 30 minutes for initial replication to begin. After that, it can take some time for initial replication to complete based on the number and size of the files.

Following the steps above, you can now easily keep sets of folders synchronized between multiple servers.

via: http://www.orcsweb.com/blog/rick/how-to-synchronize-files-between-windows-servers/

WordPress Database And Files Backup Solutions – Best Of

If you are a WordPress user, then you definitely know the importance of keeping backup copies of our files and database because there is always a risk of losing your data. How? your site might get hack (WordPress security level or server security level). What’s worst? You could lose all the files and databases. There are a lot of ways to strengthen your WordPress blog’s security but we still think one of the best way is to backup regularly so that you can re-install your files or content and roll backed to your post in no time if the site is compromised.

Here, we have chosen some of the plugins and services which can be helpful in terms of backing up your WordPress files and databases. Full list after jump.

WordPress Plugins

These plugins are used to take a back up of your critical data, files, tables and save them to your archives or any of the online storage for free or for a nominal price. Schedule the storage automatically and manage your entire database with these.

WP-DB-Backup 

WP-DB-Backup plugin creates a backup of your core database tables and also other tables in the database and gives you an option of saving your back up data either to your server or download to your computer or save get you backup file e-mailed to you.

WP-DB-Backup

Bei Fen – Backup Plugin

Bei Fen backup plugin gives you the choice of taking a backup of either your complete WordPress installation or only the files or only your database and the backups can be restored with a single click.

Bei Fen

WP Time Machine

This plugin creates an archive of your files and uploads and data and provides a connection to any of the free online storages like Dropbox, or Amazons AWS S3 and also to an FTP. You could exclude your cache directories or some of your MySQL tables which don’t start with your table prefix.

WP Time Machine

WordPress Backup

WordPress Backup plugin is used to zip your back up your images, current theme directory and your plugin directory.

WP S3 Backup

With WP S3 Backups take a backup of the parts automatically and install them to Amazon S3, a service to safeguard your important files at a comparatively lesser price.

WP S3 Backup

WordPress DB Manager

A complete plugin to optimize, repair, backup, restore, and delete the backup database and also to run your queries is offered by WP-DB Manager. Also manages the automatic scheduling of the back-up and manages your whole database.

WordPress DB Manager

WordPress EZ Backup

An administrator plugin WordPress EZ Backup create backup archives of your entire site, archives of any MySQL database chosen by you. You can view the Live log file of your backup procedure. Has an interactive Help & Auto Settings of your web server configuration.

DBC Backup Plugin

DBC Backup plugin schedules daily database backups with the wp cron system where your backup file is protected by a small hash key and are transferred to an export directory, .ht access and an imdex.html file. You can compress your backup as Gzip or Bzip2.

BackWPup

Other than taking a backup of your WordPress Blog database and files, BackWPup plugin optimizes checks & repairs the database, stores the backup either to Folder, FTP Server, Amazon S3, RackSpaceClous and sends a log or backup via e-mail.

Online Storages

Taking a backup of your data means storing it in a secure place which should also retrieves your data at a much faster rate. These online storage options helps you keep a check on your data where you can share, upload and edit your files.

Dropbox

Sync your files or your WordPress data of any size online automatically and also when new changes and files are detected and store them on Dropbox’s secure servers. Share and control the access of your files with other people. Get a storage space of 2GB for free and up to 100 GB for premium usage.

IDrive

IDrive offers you the facilities of Automatic and Continuous Backup, True Archiving, Versioning, Mapped Drive Backup and more with an online backup space of 2GB for free in IDrive Basic Package and a space of 150 – 500 GB for premium users and a 50GB pack for multiple users for Business under the IDrive Pro package.

Humyo

Humyo offers a free online storage space of 5GB for media files and 5GB for non-media files where you can access these via web only, but once you upgrade your account to Premium one, you get 100 GB storage along with automatic backup, sharing, uploading & downloading files, access via web, phone, PC, extra secure SSL encryption at a price of $69.99 per year.

Binfire

Binfire offers File hosting, Collaboration and Project Management site in its free version with 10GB storage space, file uploads of 200 MB, Private & Project web folder, File locking, Member permissions, Whiteboards, Status reports, Intuitive tasks & Milestones for projects and more.

Backup Services

The Backup services take a backup of your blog, and store them securely and restore them in case of a crash and provide you with many other services like upgrading your versions, giving you the authority of controlling your data, migrating to a new server and more.

BlogVault

blogVault creates a backup of your blog which includes the full posts, comments, images, plugins, themes and style sheets by copying them into its secure and robust servers which lets you restore the contents any time easily.

Backupify

Backupify is a service to backup your archives, cloud accounts, SaaS data, WordPress data and social media files on a daily basis to the Amazon S3 cloud with great security and a data duplication policy. You could not only backup your data but also control your data independently.

Backup Buddy

Backup Buddy schedules and backs up your data to Amazon S3 server or an e-mail or an FTP / FTPS account, Restore your WordPress site with your themes, widgets, plugins etc., on the same server or migrate it to a new server with a new name and domain like Sandbox or Playground site.  Upgrade your newer versions of the plugin in WP Dashboard

backupbuddy

Online Backup For WordPress 

Backup Technology specializes in online backup and disaster recovery and provides on-demand backup through an enterprise level backup service where the data is highly encrypted and compressed and stored in a secure data centre. Provides you an online backup of 50 MB for free with the facilities of locked and email backups.

VaultPress

VaultPress safeguards everything from our plugins, themes, comments, post-revisions with WordPress multi-cloud backups. Updates your blog with hot – fixes and protects them with zero-day vulnerabilities.

MyEASYBackup

myEASYbackup plugin performs a backup by creating a single file called dataset which compresses the data in a .zip file format and saves them outside WordPress installation directory. You could download, upload and delete your data sets.

via: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/wordpress-database-and-files-backup-solutions-best-of/