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At work we have decided to backup some of our Hyper-V servers to disk using the built in Windows 2008 tools and then back that up to tape for rotation. You will find instructions for this process in this article.

Enable VSS on the Hyper-V server

Install Windows Server Backup (WSB) feature

start /w ocsetup "WindowsServe Backup"

Edit the Registry

From command line:

reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WindowsServerBackup\ApplicationSupport\{66841CD4-6DED-4F4B-8F17-FD23F8DDC3DE}"

This is presented in the same vein as Lenny Zeltser’s How to Suck at Information Security.  If you have not read Lenny’s article it is highly recommended.

What makes a good backup solution?
Part 4 of 4
Other topics

What makes a good backup solution?
Part 3 of 4
Three more topics

If you have not read part one and part two you may want to start there.

In this section we will look at three more topics. First we will look at what kind of disaster we want to protect ourselves from. Then we will look at protecting the backups themselves and finally we will look at backup media.

What makes a good backup solution?
Part 2 of 4
Backup Types

If you have not read part one you may want to start there.

In this section we will look at the types of backups that are available in a modern environment. First we will start with a review of the 4 types of backups that most traditional backup systems can do. Then we will move on to newer techniques and technologies.

What makes a good backup solution?
Part 1 of 4
Critical Elements of a Backup Plan

This came out of a discussion on the NLUG list about making sure that Windows boxes are not infected with malware. This goes beyond that and tries to look at what technologies are out there to protect and monitor your machines. It is somewhat Windows centered but the concepts are the same for any OS (OS X, Linux, *BSD etc). I’ll throw in here my regular comment about OS security. All operating systems have bugs. Some have less than others but any OS must be regularly patched or you will be vulnerable.

This is aimed toward the business market but many of the concepts still hold true for the home user.

Microsoft is reported to be looking at the idea of sending home editions of their OS set to automatically update unless the customer turns the functionality off. My initial thinking on this is that it could be a great boon to the security and stability of the Internet.

First let’s look at the negatives.

1) Bad patches. I think this will fix most of that by forcing Microsoft to write better patches and more importantly test more thoroughly. More on this later.

Much like much of what is called "safe sex" would be more accurately called safer sex, I will call this safer computing.

This is in some sort of order but I will not promise order of importance because it is all important.

Over the years anyone who is even vaguely familiar with the security world has had the idea of security through obscurity being worthless drilled into our heads. While I will agree that security through obscurity is exceptionally weak security there is still a place for it in a complete security plan.

After years of hearing the argument that security through obscurity is no security at all it becomes easy to assume that obscurity does not add any level of security to a security plan. As long as obscurity is a part of an overall security plan it should never hurt and will in most circumstances improve your security.

I will give a few examples where security through obscurity can and does help.