On Tue, 2004-07-20 at 12:56, Alan Dayley wrote:
> Our IT guy is trying to find a new network backup solution.  He has
> requested that I query the group.  Requirements are:
> 
> - Runs on Linux.
> - FS/OSS preferred.
> - Backup of a few servers and 35+ workstations.
> - Some servers and almost all of the workstations are MS OS based.
> - Supports backup to DLT tape backup system.
> - Supports backup to optical media (CD-R/RW or DVD+-R/RW) also.
> 
> That last item seems to be the kicker.  I don't know what the driving
> force for that option is.  He would like to find something that will
> handle that.
> 
> Now, if you know something that is really great but can't directly backup
> to optical media, tell about it anyway.  He may have to live with creating
> backup images and then burning them to media in a separate process.
> 
----
depends upon your commitment to open source or not.

Open source - amanda is a killer app. It has great server/client
mechanics. Runs from cron. Drawbacks - major - no gui for setup or
users. In fact, setup is a real bitch but once you get the idea...it's
awesome. For example...you have to run their program to figure out tape
storage limits and then enter the values derived into the configuration
file. On a DDS-3, it took almost a full day just to run the tapeconfig
program. Absolutely have to turn off hardware compression and rely upon
tar compression as this is the only way you can maximize the amount you
can get on tape (it refuses to estimate hardware compression). Restore
uses cli - I am quite comfortable with this program and you can't beat
the price - GPL. DLT shouldn't pose any problem - this program is pretty
non-driver oriented since it pretty much uses the low-level drivers of
the OS (typically /dev/nst) and as I said, you run the tapeconfig
utility for it to figure out just how much it can get on a tape.

Non open source - I am using CA's ArcServe. Very powerful, almost
identical to Windows version. Requires java for web server, a must as
this is the gui for administration and for users (restoring files). Good
client options (Linux/Unix/Windows), sold as server and 'agents' -
agents not needed if you use nfs mounts. Drawbacks - server supports
some Linux, not all (i.e. RH AS 2.1 but they don't officially support
3.0, I made it work without much trouble). CA charges for all support.
Got it working without support - was a little confused by web server
setup as I didn't locate the files right away. DB is ingres and I knew
nothing about ingres before I started playing with it, corrupted the db
and had to learn more about ingres than I ever wanted to know. I am
using this with Dell LTO but DLT is pretty standard now.

BRU - never used it but have only heard good things about it.

I don't know that either can use CDR/RW or DVDR/RW but I would guess
that they both can in some fashion. Amanda can 'spool' to a file which
could be burned to CDR/DVDR via script I would guess if nothing else.

Craig

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