[TriLUG] Tabe Backup Software

Tue Apr 22 01:12:04 EDT 2003

Veritas is the grand pubah of backup software.  It will do everything
you would want it to do and probably much more, but bearing in mind you
will pay for it.  I strongly *strongly* (read strongly) recommend that
you not go with Veritas unless you also shell out for a decent support
contract.  There are too many idosyncracies with Vertitas NB to try to
go it alone especially if you haven't used it before.  It's a great
product can lean a bit toward the overkill side and is expensive.

On the Free/open side there is of course amanda.  Amanda is a world
class backup software package but does require that you know a little
bit more about backups and tape drives than some other packages.  There
are people that use it very successful in large enterprise environments
and it will excell there.  But it's changer stuff is a little tricky to
get the hang of the first time around and is not (from the last time I
looked) integrated into it (especially not to the extent it is with V-NB
and other products).  Amanda is the way to go with single tape drives
hands down.  As for changers (especially the larger ones) check if it's
supported and maybe give yourself some time to get accustomed to it and
see if it will work for you, it can be a bear for some changers and a
breeze for others.  

In the middle you've got Arkeia.  It's not nearly as full featured and
strong as either Amanda or V-NB, but it's much easier to get into than
either one, has good drive and changer support and isn't nearly as
expensive as Veritas.  I ran Arkeia for a year or so till we got V-NB
and was satified with it.  Again check to see if you drive/changer is
supported.

I would shy away from Legato and Arcserv, having run into both of these
beasts in my admin life, they are both shitty and expensive.  If you are
going to spend the bucks go with Veritas, if you're not, go with
something much more flexible.

All three of the above will handle the mentioned clients.  Veritas will
handle them all natively, Amanda will handle them all except maybe the
mac and windows nativly (you'll have to do some sort of network sharing
to get them done but there are easy docs explaining it)  and Arkeia
should have clients for all of them as well natively (except possibly
the mac, but with OSX you should be fine)

As for the headache factor, Veritas can be a pain if you aren't use to
it (DNS baby!!) but with the support contract you'll be fine (they do
have some of the best support people I've worked with),  Amanda would be
the lowest except for the changer, so Arkeia wins out by a hair there.

As a last side note, both Veritas and Amanda write data to the tapes in
formats that are fairly easy to understand without the software (ie if
your backup server get trashed or something)  Amanda writes dumps or
tars (based on configuration) and may have other formats as well.
Veritas uses tar as well.  Arkeia uses it's own proprietary method,
but always starts each new tape with a little 10
line C source program that will let you extract data without
reinstalling Arkeia.

Good luck, remember to test your restores... :)

Stick

On Mon, Apr 21, 2003 at 01:55:11PM -0400, David A. Cafaro wrote:
> I wanted to know what people would recommend for a big time Tape Storage
> Library system?  Basically my group is inheriting a StorageTek 9714 tape
> Library that has 5 DLT7000 drives and 48 slots.  We would want to use a
> Linux server to provide the SCSI connection and network connection to
> the clients which would be a mix of Windows, Linux, SunOS and Macs.  Any
> good recommendations from the OpenSource or ClosedSource worlds? 
> Cheaper is better, but if it means a lot less headaches we will shell
> out the cash.  Thanks for any ideas!
> 
> -David
> 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
http://stick.miscellaneous.net
Chris MacLeod
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