[NTLUG:Discuss] network backup solutions

[Stephen Klein]

Well, maybe I can help you knock a few of those down.  Chris mentioned 
that I mentioned it, but Bacula (http://www.bacula.org/) is a very 
capable Open Source backup system.  I'll try not to get into too much 
detail, but here's what I see that's so great about it. ;)

Bacula uses a client-server system where a client file daemon resides on 
the system being backed up and (optionally) transmits the backup data 
across the network to a storage daemon.  What's nice here is that the 
storage media for the backup does not necessarily need to be on the same 
server as the scheduler.  Clients are available for various xNIX 
flavors, and Windows NT/2000/XP systems.  What's more, all security and 
extended attributes are also stored for all systems.  Storage media can 
be almost anything, but the two main ones are file, and tape.  Tape 
changers are supported through MTX.  CD/DVD burners can be used via a 
little bit of script magic, or so I hear.

And what I see as very important, Bacula WILL SPAN TAPES, and it will 
also handle HARDWARE DATA COMPRESSION.

It can't backup Oracle databases at the record level (distant future?) 
since it currently only handles files.  However, it can run before and 
after job scripts (on both the backup host, and the client), so if you 
can somehow get the database into a read-only state (also snapshotting 
the filesystem via EVMS or LVM will be ideal) via a script, and then set 
it to read-write after the backup (or snapshot), you should be able to 
make it work.

I've been watching this project for the better part of a year now, and 
even though it's somewhat young (started in 2002), it's still evolving 
rapidly, whereas some other OSS backup systems seem to have stagnated. 
In the last couple of months I've seen it make giant leaps towards being 
enterprise ready, and there are more changes in the works.  The main 
thing lacking is a GUI interface, but that is in progress

Just for reference, Bacula was started by the same guy that wrote the 
APCUPSD package.

Also note that I haven't tried to use the Windows clients, so I can only 
guess that they work from what others have said.

Hope this helps,
Stephen Klein

MontyS at videopost.com wrote:
> Greetings.

<SNIP>

> 
> Any insight and/or ideas on how to approach backing up this network would be
> greatly appreciated.
> 
> TIA,
> 
> Monty
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