Re: [cobalt-users] ARKEIA Back up software

[Jason Woods <cobalt-ml@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Byron Servies wrote:
> 
> Chih-Lung wrote:
> 
<snip>
> >>>
> >>>Faster, more reliable, instant-restore, random-access, mirroring
> >>>capability rather than backup if you want it, remote mounting, and
> >>>so on.
> >>
> >> ...but a real bummer when your building burns down/gets
> >> robbed/floods/whatever and you don't have offsite backups.... ;)
> >
> >
> >I guess I am conviced not to use tape drive for backups.  I am going to use
> >the harddrive.  But I have no idea what rsync backup is.  Could you explain
> >to me in more detail?  Can it do auto-backup? What hardware and software do
> >I need?   How do I set it up?  Please help.  Thanks.
> 
> Hi there!
> 
> rsync is a perfectly reasonable way to performa snapshot backup, and you can
> find
> more information about it at: <http://rsync.samba.org>.   There are some
> drawbacks
> that I don't recall having seen put forward here, though.
> 
> First and foremost in my mind is that rsync only makes a single copy, unless
> you
> use something like the examples at rsync.samba.org:
> <http://rsync.samba.org/rsync/examples.html>.
> Clearly this isn't a problem as backup time, but you will have to figure out
> which ones to restore on your own at restore time.  Again, not highly onerous,
> but not automatic either.
> 
> Byron
> --
> Byron Servies       Sun Microsystems, Inc.    bservies@xxxxxxx
<snip>

I have to agree with Byron.  A snapshot of a server is a great thing to
have in case of the server needing to be totally rebuilt (lose of server
due to whatever reason).  This rarely happens.

A snapshot does not solve the problem that I have seen about 99% of the
time.  A user asks to get a file from, say, 2001-12-05.  Or, a
spreadsheet from two days ago.  I think you are getting the idea.

If you are backing up data for a website server, this shouldn't be a big
deal, as I only know a few people that edit the files directly on the
web server (though they shouldn't do this).  People should have working
copies elsewhere, which is up to them to do a versioning backup of.  But
if your server contains shared files for general users, or anything else
that might need restored via a historical backup (say, last month), and
you are only using snapshot backups, you are SOL.

As much as we all hate tape drives (and their expense!  Checked out an
Ultrium drive lately?), they are a necessary evil in corporate
environments.  That is, unless you have an off-site 1 TB server sitting
around with nothing else better to do.

-- 
Jason Woods
Oakland Corporation
jwoods@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx