Software for backups

[Alvin Oga]

hi ya chuck

On Thu, 23 Oct 2003, Chuck Yerkes wrote:

> I'd say your into the commercial realm.  Despite alvin's stream of
> conciousness ramblings, windows stuffs information into many many
> places (registries and the like).

:-)
 
> You *do not* want to require the users to have to take active
> actions to be safe.  Your job is to make it so their tool (windows)
> works.  Training them all to run be experts about their OS annoys
> them and (more often) just fails.

yes, it'd be better to do backups w/ user's knowing/doing anything
but that just makes the backup-admin's job painful
	you either have to get veritas/legatos/etc ...
	or you do your own versions and hope you pick up all
	the files the users created/installed

and if you like the [fast] veritas style network backups ...
	- you can also check into inode-based incremental backups
	
> I've had tons of problems with a "shared folder."  Laptops come
> with 60GB drives.  100 laptops won't backup well through that.

100 laptops x 60GB each is 6TB of data

	- i'm fairly certain you are not blindly backing up
	100 laptops without some "backup rules" being applied
	that they dont know about

john> I'd add to that list .jpgs, .gifs, .exes, .dlls, unless you are
john> running a graphics shop or developing Windows applications.

you cannot just exclude *.exe and *.dll as they might need those
"user installed files" to run their apps and view their data

- all user installed/downloaded files belong in 
	my-documents/download or something so you can go find it

--------

if you want to backup windoze boxes w/o user intervention/knowledge

linux#  mount  windoze:\\C  /mnt/windoze1
	( forgot the exact syntax/options )

linux#  find /mnt/windoze1 -mtime -7(days) -print |  \
	tar zxcf todaysdate.tgz -T -
linux@  umount /mnt/windoze1

	now you have their windoze backups.. guaranteed
	( done .. just saved the company $1M from buying veritas

	( done... just saved the company from buying 6TB of backups
	( for the 100 laptops w/ 60GB each

or just use amanada, lot cheaper than veritas and blame amanda
for any problems

--------

dont forget to have multiple backup servers ... just in case the
backup machine dies for the "same reasons" you're backing up client boxes

c ya
alvin