Regarding backups for colo or unmanaged servers:

Assuming you have a *nix like box or windows with cygwin at home, you can just use this:

http://www.rsnapshot.org/

Automated rsync over ssh.

I do this to my home OSX box, backing up home directories and other critical things (not the entire OS) from the remote server, then use Retrospect to back up to DVD locally.