We use a company called Backup Technology (UK Based) who have been excellent. They provide us with Asigra Televault software which, whilst a bit ugly works very well. We've had to restore some databases and takes a matter of seconds. Not the cheapest though so for personal stuff might not be the best solution.

I will go for Amazon S3. I use to backup some Linux machines : with a bash script and some simple S3 libraries it's very efficient. Perhaps there are something like that for Windows based servers ?

Can I ask you where to you have your VPS, it's a Windows one ?

I use Mozy too but Mozy pro. Is the issue VPS or Windows Servers? If it were mine, i'd just do a simple daily task to copy that machine's files to the Mozy enabled machine(s) and get them both backed up together...

I would recommend JungleDisk (www.jungledisk.com) as an interface to Amazon S3 - it mounts as a network drive so if you didn't want to use its built in backup features, you could easily write scripts to copy the data across manually.

I've been using it for a while now and got nothing but good things to say about it.

I would also be interested in who your current VPS provider is as I'm looking out for one myself.

Shawn,

I have Mozy Pro, that is what is having those issues.

It is an issue with virtual machines, from my discussions with mozy support

Matthieu,

It is on windows, and it is on vpsland.com

JungleDisk doesn't have SQL backup.

I can set up backups manually, but SQL express (which I use) doesn't have SQL Agent, so I can't schedule them.

I would rather avoid a rube goldberg solution

SQL express (which I use) doesn't have SQL Agent, so I can't schedule them.

well it should be simple enough to write a one liner backup script, and execute it with windows scheduler and sqlcmd.exe

as for actually sending the files and directories:

SyncBack SE is a very good and simple backup-over-ftp product, and it's doing incremental backups easily, and is quite cheap.

I think that I am being unclear.

I want the whole bloody thing to be off my hands, synced to somewhere in the cloud.

Mozy would have been perfect, if it worked.

I've heard good things about carbonite.com, it should run on servers, don't know about the sql server part though.

I second SyncBack SE with FTP.

Have SyncBack send everything in your SQL Data folders to an FTP site.

Just now checked on my backups for the first time in 6 months. Everything was fine (just so ya know). :)

I have a poor-man's solution, but it works well: I simple run a nant script every day that

• backs up all databases (using osql and BACKUP DATABASE)

• backs up the IIS metabase (using vbscript)

• backs up all subversion repository (using svnadmin hotcopy)

• zips the whole stuff (especially the DBs can be reduced by ~90%)

• copies the stuff over to a different HDD

• (burns the stuff on a DVD using UDF packet writing )

It's free and works well for me.

I haven't found a good (and preferably free) UDF packet writing tool for WinServer 2003, though. InCD comes bundled with the complete Nero suite, which I don't need.

I'd go for Amazon S3 or Windows Live Mesh

+1 for SyncBack

One vote for JungleDisk + S3 we just deployed the new 2.0 and love it.

We are also considering deployment on our servers as a second offsite backup.

+1 For JungleDisk + S3. Yes, it still involves some work, but minimal. And if you have access to the host machine, you could just back up the VPC's files easily and (relatively) cheaply. Not the most efficient approach, but requires virtually no effort on your part.

Amazon S3 with JungleDisk and use it's internal backup options. with JungleDisk it's mounts a local drive, or access to the WebDAV it provides. then use your favorite backup solution (syncback, etc).

I use IDrive for a Windows server (no VM). It supports block-level and versioned backups, so SQL Server databases are a non-issue.

On the subject of file backup, sharing and storage ...

Online backup is becoming common these days. It is estimated that 70-75% of all PC's will be connected to online backup services with in the next decade.

Thousands of online backup companies exist, from one guy operating in his apartment to fortune 500 companies.

Choosing the best online backup company will be very confusing and difficult. One website I find very helpful in making a decision to pick an online backup company is:

http://www.BackupReview.info

This site lists more than 400 online backup companies in its directory and ranks the top 25 on a monthly basis.

That is good to know, but it doesn't really help my situation.

Can you give a recommendation?

I use JungleDisk to back up everything. You use to to mount Amazon S3 as a folder and can then use any system you like to copy files into it. Under windows you can set up a scheduled task to copy your SQL backups to the folder using Robocopy. We also use it under Linux using rsync and it works well, if a little slowly from Europe.

I use the IDrive 2GB Free version to back up some small databases on one VPS i have. Works fine.

I also had the same problems with getting Mozy on VPS, but use it on my desktop. Great little program, worth its 4.95/month.

Ayende, would you mind making a post when you converge on a solution? As several others pointed out, this is a common need.

A small note on Mozy -- its works great for backup, but as I recently found out, the reverse (i.e. getting files back) is a major PITA. I used to recommend them to everyone, but no longer. Something to keep in mind.