Recommendations for Commercial Backup packages?

[Dan Coutu]

On Mon, 2003-12-15 at 20:56, p.lussier at comcast.net wrote:
> 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!)

Interesting to know, I'll investigate it.

> 
> >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?

Well, you sort of answered your own question! The real deal is that the
solutions do use a boot disk, either floppy or CD, to do exactly this.
Nowadays a boot CD is more common because it can load enough to have
network drivers that let you connect to the backup server and download
the drive image that you need to restore things from scratch.

Some solutions require a special 'bare-metal' backup tape for this while
others can use an ordinary full backup.

> >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?

Okay, I wasn't clear. I meant a solution that involves sending the
backup data to another computer at some other company (i.e. a hosted
backup solution.)

> 
> >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.

Never heard of him, thanks for the pointer!

I hope to wrap up the investigation this week and will post more once I
get all my facts together.

-- 

Dan Coutu
Managing Director
Snowy Owl Internet Consulting, LLC
http://www.snowy-owl.com/