Recommendations for Commercial Backup packages?

[p.lussier at comcast.net]

In a message dated: Mon, 08 Dec 2003 13:10:44 EST
Dan Coutu said:

>I've got a client with a lame backup package that just isn't proving
>to be able to do disaster recovery. They have a RH Linux 9 server
>setup as the backup server and need to be able to backup another
>Linux server and a Windows server all onto a single SCSI tape drive.

This part is easy.  As for 'commercial', I stay away from all of them.
For small-medium shops you can't beat the price/performance of AMANDA.
It's free, the suppport mailing list is awesome, and it works with 
every SCSI tape drive/stacker I've ever tried it with.  I've been 
using it for close to a decade now, and I've never lost a backup yet!
(I've also never seen a commercial package as easy to use, with as 
many features as AMANDA has!)

>The solution must be capable of fully restoring all three systems to a brand
>new empty disk drive without having to first install the O/S.

Now, this is the part I'm stumped on.  If you don't have an O/S on 
the system, and your backups are stored on tape, the drive for which 
is on a separate system, how do you propose the system to be 
recovered get it's O/S restored to it's drives if it can't boot?

At best, you can probably boot with a Linux recovery disk (Knoppix?) 
which has the backup client programs on it and restore that way.
With AMANDA this should actually be pretty easy now that I think 
about it.  But I think you'll be hard pressed to find anything else 
out there that can do things *that* easily.

The best route for this would be a multi-step process:
 - Install/configure the system
 - Burn create a KickStart CD for it.
 - Update KS CD everytime you make a change to the system

In the case of a disaster, boot using the KS CD to auto-install the
O/S, the install/use the client backup packages to restore the latest 
images from tape on the remote backup system.

Of course, this won't help you with the MS-based OS, only the RH-based 
ones.  Though, if you used AMANDA, then the KNOPPIX idea is probably 
best, since you can then boot off the CDROM (or, with some 
creativity, via DHCP to an NFS mounted ISO image of KNOPPIX :)
add the amanda client tools, and restore the drives of *any* system, 
including MS. Since the drives aren't mounted for anything, and 
you're running entirely off the CD or NFS, then you should be able to 
write the entire backup image to the local hard drive.

>I'm investigating Arkeia and NovaNet so far, other suggestions are 
>welcome. BRU has been ruled out because it can't handle the Windows backup.
>Also note that remote backups over the net are also not
>going to fly. The backup data has to go onto tape.

Errr, what does that mean?  Above you said:

  >They have a RH Linux 9 server setup as the backup server and
  >need to be able to backup another Linux server and a Windows
  >server all onto a single SCSI tape drive.

How do you propose to back up 3 systems to a single tape drive if not 
over the network?

>Thanks for any hints, tips, war stories, etc. 

Have you read W. Curtis Preston's O'Reilly book on backups?  I highly 
recommend you do if not.  There's some great information in there, 
and he's widely recognized as _the_ backup guru.

I also recommend you check out amanda.  It's not 'commercial', but I 
have yet to find an affordable backup package that's as easy to use, 
with as good support! 
-- 

Seeya,
Paul
--
Key fingerprint = 1660 FECC 5D21 D286 F853  E808 BB07 9239 53F1 28EE

	It may look like I'm just sitting here doing nothing,
   but I'm really actively waiting for all my problems to go away.

	 If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right!