Re: tape backup from remote

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Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 11:48:41 -0500
To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org

While Chris Shenton was trying to figure out why data written to
/dev/null on Wed, Mar 31, 2004 at 11:22 was not readable,
he gave up and decided to grace us with this:

> Christoph Sold <cs@cheasy.de> writes:

> > Amanda dumps (or tars -- your choice) to a holding disk on the
> > backup server. After enough data has been collected to stream
> > to tape, the tape is started. Keeps the tape streaming.

> I've also used Amanda and like it for this reason. The only
> problem, and it can be a killer depending on your situation, is
> that each dump *must* fit on a physical tape; amanda doesn't
> know how to split a too-large dump across multiple tapes.
> They've wanted this feature for years but don't believe it's
> been implemented yet. (if so, let me know!)

> As someone else suggested, many folks are now dumping tape (pun
> intended) all together and backing up to disk. Tape's slow,
> expensive, and small compared to fast, cheap disk.

I had one commercial client who never took the tape backups off
site even though I insisted, UNTIL one day he read his insurance
policy and found that his business interuption insurance would not
cover loss of business caused because of lot data if he did not
have OFFSITE backups.

> I've been considering using rsync to a remote site's disk, and each
> day rsyncing to a different destination directory, e.g., Monday/,
> Tuesday/, ... Sunday/. That way I have multiple copies/versions of my
> data -- like you would on multiple tapes.
>
> The simplistic way of rsyncing (or copying) to one destination is that
> if you don't notice you've deleted that critical file until a couple
> days later, the copy will also not have it.

Providing you don't use the flag on rsync that tells you to delete
files in the target if it no longer exists on the source.

I rsync locally. I also had a client use rsync to move his web
site from another provider to my machines, when he called and said
"I don't have enough space allocated on the current machine to make
tar files with out making very many and making them very small"

So even though the rsync was cross country and took 3 or 4 hours it
was far faster than any other method.

But - the point I intended to make - is that backing up to tape
might be a requirment in some instances that could be easily
overlooked.

I have one client whose new SW vendor was going to put in a new
server and then backup the data locally to another. If there was
a disaster there that took out both machines [and I've had two
places that did have fire damage and one that narrowly averted
disaster] then his business interuption insurance wouldn't pay
for any losses because of lost data.

In that case it was several orders of magnitude cheaper to have
a tape backup and tapes. Eg $1000 for tape drive and backups
versus high 6 figures for data loss.

Just don't overlook the paperwork.

Bill

-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com
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