[TriLUG] rsync for Disaster Recovery?

[James Brigman]

Is anyone on this list using rsync to transport their data for disaster
recovery? I've seen some effective UNIX/Linux backups/archives done with
rsync, but I'm wondering things like:

- how well can it be integrated with CIFS/Windows systems? (have I gotta
roll a SAMBA server to translate so that rsync "sees" the windows data?)
- is it relatively fast over slow links?
- how well does it work with "incremental changing" data? Can you
emulate "snapshots", for example?
- anyone have to "reverse" the direction of the rsync data flow to
recover the data, and if so, how easy was it?

Experienced replies welcome....

JKB