Google drive backup gone, ftp options advice

[drewt]

Hi,
Can anyone give advice, insights or comments on FTP alternatives to the now deprecated google drive backup feature. All of my amazon light sail hosted 3cx instances were backing up to their own google drive account, and now I need to setup an FTP solution. I have 11 instances I would like to backup to one ftp site, with each install backing up to its own sub folder. Do we know how long existing google drive backup operations will continue to be successful? Does the restore process mimic the google drive restore process, where once you get a new instance connected to the remote backup storage location, all of the backups appear in the 3cx backup folder, ready to be restored? After going through one light sail disaster and having the restore process be so seamless thanks to google drive, I hope the alternatives are as user friendly. Thank you in advance for your assistance.

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Hi,

For now the only options are to backup locally on the PBX and move the backup manually, or use an FTP service. The new update will add some more options (FTP, FTPS, FTPES, SFTP and SMB) and after that we will also allow for buckets in the next update.

As for the when Google Drive will stop working, read the linked Google document from this article https://www.3cx.com/blog/docs/backup-google-drive/

One thing to keep in mind about FTP backups though, you must ensure the FTP server is set to not timeout (especially if the backup files are large), and that the user account you create on it allows read and write for obvious reasons, otherwise backups will fail.

Setup your own FTP test server using Filezilla for example and make a light backup to see how it works (yes it looks similar with all the backups appearing in a list)
https://www.3cx.com/docs/ftp-server-pbx-backups-windows/
https://www.3cx.com/docs/ftp-server-pbx-backups-linux/

 

[hogan71088]

@JohnS_3CX

How is this going to impact on the backup/restore procedure for failover systems?

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Firstly, for failover to work you need to have successful backup/restore. The backup/restore process does not really care what location you use, so long as it works.

So if you setup your active server to backup to an ftp location, you need to setup the passive server to connect to the same location so it can restore.

 

[David Forster]

Looking forward to the Google Storage buckets option being added, I think it's a really cost effective option for long term storage of recordings etc.

One question.. In the next release I understand there is going to be a migration option for recordings. We run our systems with a fairly small hard drive so migrating all the recordings back to this drive in one go is not an option. Do you think the migration option could be tweaked to allow transfer directly from one external source to another, i.e. Google Drive to Google Buckets, or even an option just to migrate a few at a time?

I guess the only other option would be to temporarily expand the partition, do the migration and then shrink it back to it's usual size. Was just looking for an easy life

Dave.

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Hi Dave,

You'll need to have space on the local recordings folder to get this done. If the migration runs out of space, it will stop, so best to plan ahead.

Worse case Scenario:
If extra space is not possible the migration will end as failed (you will receive an email).
In this case you need to so some extra work by doing the following:

• change the archiving location (and scheduled time) to the new location
• get whatever is on the local drive to transfer to the new location
• then switch back to GDrive to try again and pick up the rest

The Migrate Archive option will continue to appear if the migration fails so you should be able to repeat the procedure until all are migrated. At this point, the button will go away and all your files should reside on the new location. Don't forget to reset the schedule when you are done, so you can resume archiving normally.

Important note: do not press the "deauthorize your Google Drive" button while swapping archive locations, you may not be able to authorize it again.

 

[David Forster]

Thanks John,

Appreciate the suggestion. It seems a temp increase in recording folder size is looking like the best option then.

Do you know if the buckets option will be live before Google Drive option is depreciated? Would be useful not to have the local storage folder to big for too long (as persistent discs are fairly expensive in the cloud for long periods of time).

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Important note: do not press the "deauthorize your Google Drive" button while swapping archive locations, you may not be able to authorize it again.

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Thanks John,

Appreciate the suggestion. It seems a temp increase in recording folder size is looking like the best option then.

Do you know if the buckets option will be live before Google Drive option is depreciated? Would be useful not to have the local storage folder to big for too long (as persistent discs are fairly expensive in the cloud for long periods of time).

These are planned for update 5

 

[Levi K]

Important note: do not press the "deauthorize your Google Drive" button while swapping archive locations, you may not be able to authorize it again.

Dang haha. I wish I would have seen this yesterday. Wanted to change the Google account used for the backup and after deauthorizing the original Google account I was unable to connect any other Google account. Wish I would have left this alone until the Buckets integration was live.

I am not very tech-savvy so for now I have had to expand this disk space on my VM and I save the backups to the local disk. Then I manually download the back-up files to my local computer for safe-keeping. The Google Drive back-up option was straight forward and simple. I hope another similar non-managed method comes back soon. Setting up FTP, SFTP is not something I want to do especially since Google Drive was essentially maintenance (and financially) free.

With PBX express and the Google Cloud marketplace app 3CX has essentially put their PBX in anyone's hands that can click a few buttons. The new back-up options break that theme as it requires some sort of tech capabilities. But I understand this was from Google's end and not 3CX. Hope to see something straightforward as Google Drive backup added back into the future.