Backup strategy for Unix

[Bill England]

In article <227 at genco.bungi.com> rad at genco.bungi.com (Bob Daniel) writes:
>In article <6226 at spdcc.SPDCC.COM> rbraun at spdcc.COM (Rich Braun) writes:
>>
>>The backup software which comes with SCO Unix is obsolete, compared with
>>software I've seen for other systems.  I'd like to have something which
>>has enough flexibility and reliability to handle backups totally automatically
>>without requiring a lot of expertise on the part of a sys admin.  (If I
>>don't have software to do this, guess who gets stuck with the task...)
>>
>>I can probably talk my company into paying decent money for the right
>>software.  If you've had experience setting this type of thing up and can
>>offer your opinions, I'd love to get your advice.  And if I've missed
>>something about 'backup' which redeems itself as a useful utility, I'd
>>also be interested in gaining insight.
>
>I'm system administrator for about 70 systems and have written my own auto
>backup program because I have not seen one that I liked and I never know if
>I can trust it.
>
  One of my clients is interested in Tape backup software.  I'm 
  considering putting together an application, written in Perl,
  that will control a tape library and backup system.

  Features that I'm researching at include, tape serialization, 
  tape expiration, backup verification, library maintenance, and 
  foriegn libary tape exchange.

  Sigh ... my clients comment, when they tried to use the tape backup
  facility with their new AT&T system, was; "This is like going back
  to the stone age ... How come there isn't something like fastback
  available ?, with compression ?, that runs quickly ?, and has media
  error recovery capability ?. "

  I would like to solicit ideas based on the above for inclusion into
  the system.   ( By the way the software will be available GNL'ed )

  Also, Can anyone answer the question:  What part of a tape backup
  system solution should be done by Hardware?  Which part by Software ?

>[...]

  Thanks for a different way to do a verification!  I may use this 
  concept in the initital version.

>[...]
>
>Another thing.  I personally would use a backup program that is written through
>a shell script than one that is compiled.  That way, I can see how it is done.

  GNU ...  GNU ... GNU !!!  :-)

P.S.  What do you think about software patents ?
-- 
 +-  Bill England,  wengland at stephsf.COM -----------------------------------+
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