Securing Windows NT/2000 Servers for the Internet

Backup Methods

Backups can be performed using either a local storage device or a remote storage device. The backup method you choose depends upon your needs and your environment. In a small environment, local backups might be the best solution. If you have a larger number of hosts, you may prefer to use remote backups to centralize management and data storage.

Local Backups

A local backup is a backup performed to a locally attached storage device. Local backups are the preferred way of doing backups in a perimeter network, since this type doesn’t affect the network exposure of the host. No backup agent software that opens up network listeners needs to be installed.

However, there are several problems with doing local backups. One problem is that a local backup architecture might not scale from a management perspective. Since there is no single tool to handle all backups, each host must be administered and monitored separately.

Another problem is that the backup media is left in the backup device until someone manually removes it and takes it to a safe place. There’s no point in doing backups in the first place if there’s a fire in the computer room and the tape is destroyed.

Backups over the Network

If you have lots of hosts in the perimeter, you may find that it’s better to perform backups over the network. A common way to achieve this is to install a backup agent on the bastion hosts that authenticates the backup server and encrypts the data in transit. The backups are initiated by ...