What to backup?

[berihebi]

I'm looking after a Windows 2003 Small Business Server for my company. We have Backup Exec 10. We have 20 users who save data to shared directories on the server and we run Exchange for email.

I'm not sure what I should backup. Of course, I'll backup all data from the shared directories but beyond this what am I supposed to backup? I don't just want to backup absolutely everything if it isn't required. Of course, with our backup we want to be able to restore files if necessary but also be able to get back up and running in case of some major disaster such as hardware damage/theft.

Also, a different topic, I'm just getting started with networking and looking after a server. How can I go about learning about the basic of networking and network communications. The network I currently work with is pretty simple - 20 users in a single domain environment. The network was already set up when I arrived though so I don't know much about how things fit together and work. Can anyone suggest good sources of info from websites to books etc?

[DonBB]

Personally, I have 5 backup tapes, one for each day of the week. I do a full backup every night, and on the last day of the month, after the backup is done, I put that tape in the fireproof safe and replace the tape. Doing a full backup is the safest way to go, unless you're worried about other constraints...cost, etc.

[berihebi]

Thanks for that. What I'm wondering about though is what I should actually select to backup. Should I just backup absolutely everything? I've heard of people backing up the system state and nothing else - don't really know what this means. Do I need to backup the mailboxes as well as the exchange directory?

[bAdWaYz]

I would do full drive images that way you can backup either just the missing files you need or if the whole system goes "hard drive crash" you can be back up and running in no time. If the money is there it is also good to look into setting up RAID so you have some fault tolerance. As for some places on the web to read...

http://www.serverwatch.com/ Jam packed with good info on servers of all types

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/evaluation/networking/default.mspx Basic info on what MS has to offer for small business

http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/products/server/resource-kit/ A more indepth look at MS Small Business Server

[berihebi]

Thanks for that Badways