Can Windows Server 2008 R2 do backups to remote locations

backupwindows-server-2008

I have a WS2008 R2 box that does local backups of all my PCs, databases, etc. I do replication to a few drives. I want to be able to backup across the network, offsite, to say a drive at my office or home. I can't find any documentation that does this. Can WS2008 do this? If so, can someone provide me with some documentation? Otherwise I was thinking of setting up a local back up, creating a scheduler that calls a bat file witch then FTPs the file somewhere. Would that work? I want to go this route only if there are no options with WS2008.

Thanks in advance!

Best Answer

Create a backup job using wbadmin specifically with the -backuptarget switch i.e. -backuptarget:\\servername\sharename

Unfortunately, wbadmin requires the share to be a UNC path, so other network storage filers are excluded. But really, did you want to push your backup across a network using FTP? Of course you didn't. When asking yourself "Can Windows backup to $n storage service?" reverse the question and ask "Can $n storage service be presented to Windows as a local drive or UNC path?" If the latter question can be answered in the affirmative, then you can use wbadmin to backup to it either locally or across the network.

If you're more into PowerShell (which anyone administering Windows boxxen should be), have a look at how to add PowerShell cmdlets that can manage Windows Server backups. There's quite a gamut of them:

Add-WBBackupTarget
Add-WBBareMetalRecovery
Add-WBFileSpec
Add-WBSystemState
Add-WBVolume
Get-WBBackupSet
Get-WBBackupTarget
Get-WBBareMetalRecovery
Get-WBDisk
Get-WBFileSpec
Get-WBJob
Get-WBPolicy
Get-WBSchedule
Get-WBSummary
Get-WBSystemState
Get-WBVolume
Get-WBVssBackupOptions
New-WBBackupTarget
New-WBFileSpec
New-WBPolicy
Remove-WBBackupTarget
Remove-WBBareMetalRecovery
Remove-WBFileSpec
Remove-WBPolicy
Remove-WBSystemState
Remove-WBVolume
Set-WBPolicy
Set-WBSchedule
Set-WBVssBackupOptions
Start-WBBackup

It should be noted that the PowerShell cmdlets do not support backing up to removable media. You'll need to fall back on wbadmin for that. They do, however, support network targets.

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