BB Went missing!

[More Power]

What a day! :(

It appears the server went down this morning due to what I assume at this point to be a hardware failure. Bringing it back to life inadvertantly meant losing some of the most recent posted messages/threads and the latest registrations. Our ISP guy is aware of the problem, and is looking into it as I type this.

We're running a raid system, so I don't quite understand how this could have happened, unless both went south and the most recent full backup was made on 12/3...

Jim

[jonflies]

Thanks for the information. I thought everyone was on Christmas vacation.

Join the club. Computers are great when they're working, but a real pain when they're not. Hmmm, like Chevy diesels....

[dieseldummy]

What ever became of the upgrade mentioned a while back??

[More Power]

I had planned - still planning - to upgrade the BB software. A couple of issues developed just before doing the work. 1- UBB was bought by a competing BB software company, and overnight made UBB Threads a question (which is what I wanted to migrate to). 2- Our ISP was bought out by another networking/hosting company, and things changed there as well.. Too many variables to allow a decision to be made. And, the BB has been remarkably stable for nearly 2-1/2 years.

One reason for bringing Greg Shields (Dmaxmaverick)in as an administrator is to help work through these sorts of issues. We will be (have already been) discussing them.

We have a number of other files on the BB server that are not a part of the forum. Those files also reverted to 12/3/05 versions, so it's not just BB related.

Jim

[CareyWeber]

Originally posted by More Power:
What a day! :(

It appears the server went down this morning due to what I assume at this point to be a hardware failure. Bringing it back to life inadvertantly meant losing some of the most recent posted messages/threads and the latest registrations. Our ISP guy is aware of the problem, and is looking into it as I type this.

We're running a raid system, so I don't quite understand how this could have happened, unless both went south and the most recent full backup was made on 12/3...

Jim It depends on the Raid level that the Raid controller is running at.

Raid levels
Mirroring (IIRC #2) all data is the same on the two mirrored drives can you say $$$$ takes two drives to make one.

Raid #5 Raid array and the data is spread over all the drives in the array to minimize the loss of data. If a drive is hot-swappable then the data loss should be very minimal. If the array is not hot-swappable then the restore procedure affects how much data is lost.

Even with a Raid controller backups are required if data integrity is needed. If the Raid controller dies (rare yes but can happen) with out good backups count on losing data and not just a little bit of data. :eek:

Carey

[markrinker]

Recovering a failed RAID cluster is tricky business. What makes them ultra-dependable when everything is working well, makes them harder to restore/repair when you finally encounter a series of errors too much for the array and the OS to overcome.

This happened to our server at a Harley-Davidson store, shortley after its grand opening in 2000. We only lost about 12 hours of register transactions - the impact on inventory counts, parts counts, and service orders was profound.

What happened in that case was a board fried that controlled the disk arrays. Not much RAID can do to save data when the signals its being sent are comprimised. We ended up having to restore to the last good backup, after replacing the board.

Sorry to hear it. Be careful on the restore...

[ 12-21-2005, 04:51 AM: Message edited by: Mark Rinker ]

[bbudus]

Does your backup software allow for Incremental or Differential backups. This would allow you to keep up with your backups without making multi-tape backups every night. Just a thought. Bummer on the crash, Admins nightmare.

Bbudus

[trbankii]

Last place I worked the IT guy was convinced that running a RAID array meant he didn't have to do backups. He learned the hard way...

Mirroring means you always have a backup. However, there are two things to consider. First, you will have a mirror of any problems too. If a virus or something corrupts the data, you will have a mirror of the corruption. Second, if you have something like a lightening strike that takes out the online equipment you will possibly take out both copies. So you still want backups that aren't connected to anything - tape, external harddrive that you then disconnect, DVD, etc.

Likewise, segmented arrays don't provide any duplicity of information. You still need a backup of some sort. And depending on the segmentation, losing one drive can really screw everything up. The segmentation is more for speed of access than for redundancy.

[MJEasly]

Redundant controllers (mirrored) and RAID 5 disk subsystem. But, that is no substitute for a tested, verified backup.

[ZZ]

I upgraded to my present Motherboard for the RAID mirroring capabilities. It was more trouble than it's worth to me. I finally started using the two drives independently for my backup needs.

[More Power]

Back in August of 2003 I searched for a host that understood BB's, understood security (that was our biggest problem) and offered a backup strategy to protect the data...

However, no matter what the ISP host says in the beginning, unless one has direct control over a server (push the buttons and change/upgrade hardware/software), you'll be relying on someone else - as the years tick by.

Greg and I are developing a new plan. smile.gif

Jim

[ 12-27-2005, 09:46 AM: Message edited by: More Power ]

[CareyWeber]

Originally posted by More Power:
Back in August of 2003 I searched for a host that understood BB's, understood security and offered a backup strategy to protect the data... Our experience in 8/03 was not a pleasant one.

However, no matter what the ISP host says in the beginning, unless one has direct control over a server (push the buttons and change/upgrade hardware/software), you'll be relying on someone else - as the years tick by.

Greg and I are developing a new plan. smile.gif

Jim Even with backup unless you test them to know forsure that they do work when you restore then you are still flying in the dark so to speak.

If you are depending on someone else to to do the backups then you are at theeir mercy. The way to ensure they are doing it is to restore to test the backups.

Carey

[bbudus]

The easiest way to test a backup is to create a file, oh any file, and throw some data in it, a couple word docs or some such, then delete them and use the backup to reinstall. That way you can test your backups but you dont have to do a full install. Not to mention if you delete good files, or replace them and the backup is bad, well you are sitting in the same sinking boat as before.

Bbudus