What to do about backup?

Doug Moncur

Capacity, Capacity

Too much data to back up, not enough capacity

Limited by existing STK library capacity

Adding a new library way outside of budget

Use Disk dear boy, use disk

Disk is (allegedly) cheaper

Disk is incremental - no massively expensive upgrades

No costs for media

Disk store could be backed up to existing STK drives if desirable

2 sorts of disk

Virtual tape library - emulates a tape library Can use existing software Data stored in tape images

Retrieving files as difficult as now Easy versioning

2 Sorts of disk

Archival store Files copied on a per file level

Easier to find and restore individual files Versioning possible

What do most people do?

Virtual tape No brainer, fits into existing backup

strategy Easy to move tape images to real tape

But we’re not most people

Rarely need to restore full file systems

Often need to restore files only

Archive!

Archival solutions

Off the shelf solutions not common Most commercial solutions block level

windows oriented solution Eg EMC Legato Replicstor

Commercial solutions

Copan systems Disk Array vendor, has Millenia Archive

product that does file level copies

Storhouse Versioning software copying solution,

allegedly hardware agnostic

Non Commercial solutions

Rdiff Works like rsync but does versioning

No nice tools using rdiff would mean a lot of scripting

Scalable and sustainable ?

Problem areas

OS X Need to chanck solution handles data forks

Exchange No archival solution really handles exchange

Do ntbackup style dump of exchange to disk and archive it

Use proper exchange aware backup tool for mailbox backup