In case any of this is useful for you guys....
Begin forwarded message:
Dear Valued Customer,
Periodically it is necessary to review your system’s backup strategy to ensure your data is being backed up efficiently and not over-utilizing valuable disk storage space. Your PEER 1 backup plan has a 30GB limit of storage space as described in the PEER 1 Tivoli Service Description (http://dedicatedhosting.com/servicedescriptions). The 30 GB limit includes the initial full system backup, plus all incremental backups (6 copies of changed files) and 1 copy of deleted files, all of which have a 30 day retention period.
In many situations it is possible that this limit is being exceeded which can inhibit the performance of both your server and your backup system. In order to rectify these situations, your PEER 1 Dedicated Hosting support team has put together guidelines of how to successfully limit backup storage usage for your servers.
If you have a system administrator, we recommend you pass this on to them so as to ensure your data is being effectively backed up.
Improving Backup Restoration by Limiting Drive Space Usage
Many customers use their servers as data repositories, keeping old information and local copies of files on them forever. Servers can quickly accumulate large quantities of unused, temporary, and duplicate files. This can cause issues with backups, as copying large quantities of unneeded files can take a long time. Restoring data could also be very time consuming if unneeded files and directories are present. From our extensive experience, restoration requests are always critical and extremely time sensitive. Making sure that unneeded information is not backed up, results in a much improved restoration experience and in most cases less downtime. As a subscriber to our backup service, you are already taking steps in the right direction to ensure your data is protected. PEER 1 would like to help make sure that the restoration process goes as smoothly as possible.
Excessive data can also cause a server to stop working properly as available disk space dwindles. Running out of space is a dangerous situation for both Linux and Windows servers; therefore we are providing some tips you may follow in order to avoid these kinds of situations.
Care should be taken to not impact the functionality of your server by removing system-critical data or files. Doing so could cause downtime and/or loss of productivity. If you are in doubt about the importance of a file or program, please ask support for assistance before removing it.
Below are some tips for reducing the excess information stored on a server:
* Store on the server only data that is necessary for your business’ operation. If required, archive and remove obsolete data at your business’ location for reference.
* Remove temporary files and uncompressed installation programs from your system. Ask your application developers to write their scripts and programs to delete temporary files when not in debug mode.
* Delete duplicated or unnecessary files and directories.
* Uninstall unused programs, software or packages, and avoid installing unnecessary ones.
* Rotate and compress logs. Most systems are configured to do this by default; however, user-installed applications may not have this feature. Review your log file sizes for your applications to determine if rotation is occurring.
* If you install third-party software, remove the installers after installation. If you need to keep a copy of the software handy, store a compressed version on your server.
As mentioned above, the amount of stored backup data included in your backup product is 30GB. As explained in the Tivoli Service Description, PEER 1 reserves the right to charge for data over 30GB at a rate of $3 per GB. We have previously only billed for extreme overages, but this policy will be more stringently enforced at a later date. While we would of course inform customers prior to implementing this enforcement, we highly recommend you ensure you would not be affected by this policy.
If you wish to inquire about your current stored backup amounts or if you need further information regarding your Tivoli backup solution, we encourage you to open an online ticket at https://dhsupport.peer1.com or contact your PEER 1 Dedicated Hosting Support Team at 1-877-504-0091 or 1-305-717-6600.
In the coming months PEER 1 will be providing timely, updated usage reports to all backup customers as we are continually looking to improve our services.
Thank you,
Your PEER 1 Dedicated Hosting Team
http://www.dedicatedhosting.comPlease note: This is an automatically generated e-mail message sent from an unmonitored e-mail box. Any e-mail sent in reply to this message will not be answered. However, if you have additional questions, please call us at 1-877-504-0091 or 1-305-717-6600.
Thank you.