Finally, in this post, we cover the last point of when to divide backup servers. We have read about the advantages and disadvantages of single backup servers and the advantage of multiple backup servers. We have simply listed bullets of the disadvantages of having multiple backup servers here, since most of the advantages and disadvantages are similar whether you are using multiple or single backup servers.
Twice as much administration
Multiple points of administration
Configuration management
Catalog management
Much more complexity
Most people design their backup environment with one goal in mind: to back up the data as efficiently and quickly as possible. Others, however, design their backup environments to include the newest technology toys. We’re not against the fancy toys, but we are against unnecessary complexity and wasteful resources that eventually lead to an environment that is struggling to meet the service level agreements that your group has made with the business. Backup is a critical service, probably the most important role in the company next to that of the visionaries who create the future for the company. After all, backup protects these visionaries’ intellectual property, and without it, we risk losing all of that precious data. Minimize your exposure by architecting a solid backup solution, but do it in a way that makes the management of that environment feasible for everyone who will have any responsibility within the environment.
Service-level agreements are typically used to define performance expectations for a given service between the customer and the provider. Some companies use this for internal purposes to track performance of the various computing solutions offered to the business units. In this respect, the SLA would be between the IT group or the provider and the business unit or customers. For this reason, it is very important that you properly manage the expectations for backup and recovery from the very beginning.
The bottom line for the customer in the two building illustration: it was best to deploy two masters because of the WAN in the middle. When the WAN goes down, you essentially have lost all communication to the other facility, so if all you had was a media server in building B, you would be effectively down until the WAN was fixed. They too would be in dire straits if the WAN went down, based on their desire to back up between facilities, but it was a risk they were willing to take since they had redundant network links by different providers between buildings
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