Remote Desktop Recovery Instruction

IBSurgeon offers 2 types of recovery service for Firebird and InterBase: on site and via remote desktop. On site recovery means that customer needs to transfer database (archived in zip/rar/7z/etc) to us and we perform recovery in our office. To perform remote desktop recovery our specialists connect to the computer on customer’s side and perform investigation and recovery remotely.

When you need remote desktop recovery

Usually we offer remote desktop of service in the following cases (applies to the one case or their combination):

-          for databases with size >5Gb

-          for database with very sensitive information (please notice we are also ready to sign NDA to provide legal protection). Though our policy regarding customers’ data is very strict, some customers prefer to do not send a database outside.

-          for urgent recoveries. Sometimes it’s too long to transfer database file for recovery and it’s faster to connect.

-          for fast investigation of problem and further recovery on working systems. We can connect to working system and perform recovery during offline hours.

Quick review of remote desktop recovery process

So, how it is usually looks like.

1)      This step is free! You send email or submit online form with recovery request. We check attached information and try to give a quote with minimum and maximum amount, if it’s possible. We can provide the exact diagnosis and time/price of recovery only after investigation.

2)      This step is free! If you think this quote is acceptable, we determine will remote desktop recovery be the best choice and if yes, ask you to prepare computer for recovery according to our requirements.

3)      This step is free! We connect to recovery computer, shutdown Firebird and then rename database file to avoid any connects attempts, then we copy original corrupted database file.

4)      This step is free! We upload our tools (directly or using your admin assistance) and start investigation.

5)      This step is free! Investigation usually takes several hours. Investigation is free, as a result, we give you a final quote (between minimum and maximum amount specified at step 1) and time and price estimation. Usually (if it’s possible) we also give you approximate estimation of losses in %% of overall data stored in the database.

6)      If you decide to order our service, we start recovery. Sometimes recovery takes less time than investigation due to that fact we know the reason and exact location of corrupted areas in database. After recovery is complete we set back database to its place and run server again.

7)      After recovery customer checks database, if it’s Ok, we proceed with payment. If database is not recovered or losses are more than estimated in final quote, you don’t to pay for failed recovery (if it was not specified separately). Unfortunately we cannot guarantee 100% on time recovery, so recovery time can be more than estimated, but it does not affect the quote price.

Preparing for remote desktop recovery

Remote desktop computer should be equipped with Windows; it should be powerful and has enough disk space for performing recovery operations. It can be a virtualized computer instance (VMWare or similar) with enough resources too. Remember that slow computer increases time of recovery, its price and overall downtime of your business.

Strict minimum requirements:

-          If main server is using for recovery, all users should be off during investigation and recovery. Firebird or InterBase instances will not work properly during recovery.

-          OS Windows, at least NT4. We need Windows even for Linux databases (database file should be copied and recovered using our Windows-based tools)

-          Enough free disk space. Assuming your database is X Gb, we need at least 2x Gb of free space to perform recovery. It can be on additional drive (be aware that USB drives can be not so fast as usual, as well as drives in virtualized environments)

-          Package of our tools should be loaded to computer where investigation and/or recovery will be done.

-          RAM 1Gb. 1Gb is an absolute minimum amount of RAM to work with reasonable response time. We recommend at least 2Gb (4Gb for Vista).

-          Full administrative rights. It sounds scary, but we need full access to all disks, ability to install different InterBase and Firebird instances, run and stop services, rename and copy database files and server’s config files, access to temp directories and so on. Ideally you would setup empty computer with Windows, load database and our tools there and give us full access. We don’t recommend to perform recovery on production servers due to the possible danger

Possible additional software to be installed:

-          Different versions of Firebird. Some corruptions are better to fix on particular version of the engine.

-          Firebird source code and MS Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition (plus SDK). Sometimes the only way to locate database is to use special debug version of Firebird source base and catch the problem inside.

-          .NET Framework 2.0 and higher (it’s necessary for FBScanner work)

Tip: usual workstation with 2Gb RAM, SATA HDD and Windows XP/2003 can be a very good choice

Remote Desktop software

To allow us to connect you need to install one of remote assistance tools. Usually we recommend using Terminal Server, VNC, Citrix, RAdmin. There are also gotomypc, logmein and other types of remote access. We can discuss and install necessary client software.

To access usually we just need IP address of computer with database to be recovered, and login and password to log in.

If you are using VPN you need to provide us with VPN connection details first.

Price and time

Remote desktop recovery is more expensive than usual recovery of database in our office due to the necessity to perform synchronized work (i.e., for usual recovery we can put corrupted database in a queue and work at suitable time) and working during non-usual hours (we are at GMT+3).

Remote desktop recovery price starts from EUR 500, and average price is ~1000-1200 EUR.

FYI, cases when we ask more than 2000 EUR are very seldom. Every corruption is special and requires investigation and quoting.

The minimum time for remote desktop recovery is 3-3.5 of actual hours (from the first successful login into remote computer). Average is 6-8 hours (i.e., 1 work day).