RE: [cobalt-users] Backing up Raq3i's etc....Help !

["Glenn Parsons" <gparsons@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I am a UK based ISP. We are predominantly Mac OSX based, however, we also
> host on Sun/Cobalt Raq 3's. As such our mail servers (Communigate
> Pro 3.4.7)
> run on RaQ 3i's (have a a SCSI port) and we also have customer located Raq
> 3's (No SCSI Port).
>
> Our mail servers currently use Cobalt Staqware to create a two machine
> cluster - though this has proved problematic in the past and I am open to
> removing it provided I can get a good backup solution.
>
> I am open to any suggestions as to how others have overcome this problem.
> With so few Cobalt units I am not keen on investing in a heavyweight
> commercial application (Arkeia for example $3000 !) - does anyone have a
> better solution that will run on Raq3i with either a DAT or Ecrix
> VXA drive.
>
> I am desperate to resolve our current backup and archive capability for
> these Linux based servers - we have no backup at present !
>
> I really need to get this resolved asap and have had little help
> from Cobalt
> themselves - 'HELP !' is the operative word !
>
> Thank you.
> --
> Aidan Bowen
> TECHNICAL DIRECTOR
> ---------------------------------

Hello Aiden,

I was in your exact position a few months ago. I did decide to use Arkeia,
however, there is a free-ware version that runs on a server and allows only
one client access. Here's how my reasoning went: Since I can get a hard
drive for next to nothing and can run Linux for next to nothing on a cheap
Pentium/PentiumII-based machine, why not run Arkeia on a dedicated backup
server with lots of hard drive. You can backup the Cobalts to the dedicated
backup server on it's hard drive(s), then backup that data with tape from
the backup server. You can script your backups using a couple of utilities
easily available for your Cobalts: rsync, rdist, or scp with SSH. In any
case you'll want to be running and authenticating with SSH, which implies
you'll have scp running.

Investigate further towards this sort of solution. I think you'll find it
makes the most sense. I hope this helps!

Thanks,
Glenn