Subject: SUMMARY: Backup Experiences Wanted

From: "M. Nicklaus" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1999 18:53:25 -0400

Some time ago I asked a question regarding backup solutions.  Below
follows a summary of those responses that I received which reported
experiences with various setups (slightly edited for brevity).

In spite of some pretty positive recommendations for several
hardware/software setups, we decided to go for a different solution
altogether.  Since it has not shipped yet, I can't report on any
experiences with it.  (It's still essentially in final beta test stage.)
I'll be happy to report if people ask me.

Marc

============================= QUESTION ================================

We have a setup with about 20 computers with a variety of Unix variants.
These range from nearly 10 Linux/AXP systems, through a few Linux/x86
machines, to several SGI workstations, one DEC AlphaServer, and even
the odd OpenStep system.  OS's used are Linux/AXP and Linux/x86, from
RedHat and Debian, with kernel versions from 2.0.xx to 2.2.xx, IRIX's
6.3-6.5, OSF/1 3.2c, OpenStep 4.2.  Total disk space on these systems is
currently on the order of 300 GB.  We expect this to double within the
next 12-18 months, and the number of machines is also likely to go up
substantially.

What I'm looking for is a unified backup solution for all these systems.
In fact, our needs range all the way from mirroring through backup to
archiving; but currently, the need for backup is the most urgent one.

So here's my QUESTION:  What kind of unified backup solution have people
found to actually *work* for a setup like this?

============================= ANSWERS ================================

 From: Leif Norskov <[email-masked]>

Legato's Networker is professional grade backup software.
Available for all your systems (except maybe OpenStep?).
It supports all kinds of hardware (we use DLT jukeboxes),
even backups to disk.  But rather expensive.

NB:  It does not rely on NFS, but its own (fast) client/server protocol.
     Which also means you need a client license for every host...

Leif Norskov
Novo Nordisk A/S

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 From: Huub van Dam <[email-masked]>

I have passed this question on to one of our computer scientists and she
suggested to the AIT tape technology together with amanda. I assume you
will need a tape changer with that as AIT can only store 50 GB per tape
max. (using compression) and you don't want to sit next to your machine
all night.

Huub van Dam                               E-mail: [email-masked]
CCLRC Daresbury Laboratory                  phone: +44-1925-603362

----------------------------------------------------------------------  

 From: David Reichert <[email-masked]>

Admitedly you requirements are slightly larger :) than mine, but I highly
recommend Amanda. The cost is perfect (free) and it is extremely flexible
it terms of types of backup and supported hardware (if you can compile the
source it will work). I'll admit that the learning curve is steep, the
mailing list however is very helpful although with a lot of traffic. I'm
easily backing up an SGI (Irix 6.2) a Linux (RH 6.0), and a couple of
Sun's probably ~ 30 Gb total disk capacity on an old Exabyte 8200 without
much problem. 

David Reichert, Ph.D                     
Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine

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 From: Malcolm Gillies <[email-masked]>

A couple of years ago I worked at a major ISP in Australia. They run
mainly Solaris boxes, with a couple of BSDI systems. Just before I left we
switched to using Amanda for doing all our backups (mostly across the
network) to a DLT with a tape changer. The new backup system was put
together by one of the senior sysadmins who had researched the options
pretty thoroughly.

My impression was that this took some effort to set up, but that it
worked to requirements.

Malcolm Gillies <[email-masked]>
PhD student, computational medicinal chemistry
Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy,
Utrecht University, The Netherlands

----------------------------------------------------------------------

 From: David F. Green <[email-masked]>

We've recently started to migrate to an AIT based back-up for our
system.  We have 2 SGI workstations, 4 4-processor Linux boxes, and a
new 10 2-processor cluster running Linux.

The 4 processor machines have a total disk space of about 215 GB (190
Data, 25 system) and 2 of them have 4-tape(AIT) changers from Sony.  We
used to back-up the machines without changers just using DDS tapes, but
since we've moved to 100B-T network, we've started to back up all the
Linux machines to the AIT.

For our new cluster we got one single processor machine with the same
4-tape changer to act as a back-up server for the 10 machines of the
cluster.  All together the cluster has 170 GB of data space and 110 GB of
system space (including /tmp ).  Since each AIT tape has a native capacity
of 25 GB (100 GB in a 4-tape cartridge) we can back-up the cluster with 11
tapes (3 cartridge changes / full back-up).  We do a full system back-up
every week, and so 300 GB is about the maximum we can do on a single tape
changer.

The cluster is fairly new, but we've been happy with the AIT on the
other machines.  We lost about 150 GB of data in a system break-in
earlier this year, and restoring the machines that had been backed up by
the AIT was a lot faster than those on DDS.

The main drawback for the AIT is cost - the changer is about $4000 for
an internal (fits in a mid-tower case taking up 2 5.25" slots) or $4500
for an external (huge ... i wouldn't recommend it), and tapes are around
$70 a piece.  We use cron scripts running cpio as our software - you
can't get cheaper than that, and have been happy with it.

One other thing - over network back-ups are only a realistic solution if
you have at least a switched 100B-T network.

I've just tried to give a quick overview of what we're doing, so if you
have any more questions feel free to ask.  Our system has been growing
fast lately, and probably will over the next year or so as well, and
we'll be sticking with the AIT solution as a very good one.

David F. Green
Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

----------------------------------------------------------------------  

 From: Christoph Weber <[email-masked]>

we use Veritas Netbackup for ~200 SGIs, ~150 SUNs, various other Unix
hosts (HP, Linux/x86, DEC) and a few dozen (and growing) of our 1200 PCs
and Macs. A level 0 dump amounted to 2.2 TB last spring.

Data is streamed to duplicate DLT 7000 tapes in a tape robot (forgot the
manufacturer) hosted by a SUN E3500 with 100 GB RAID. For expansion we
are looking at AIT technology, again inside a huge robot. DLT is very
reliable, but expensive. AIT seems to be reliable also and a lot
cheaper. 

NetBackup works reliably most of the time. There have been occasional
glitches with the software, but Id say that's to be expected with so
many clients.

Backups are scheduled to run unattended. Restores are done by hand by
the backup administrator (no user access).

RAID: If you can do it, go for it! It has saved us countless headaches.
Of course, even RAID breaks once in a while, but it survives a lot of
problems. RAID, coupled with a server consolidates disk space and
provides a more manageable growth path than the scattered disks all over
your workstations. 
We tend to choose selfcontained hardware RAID units from Western
Scientific. The supplier choice has more to do with great service and
their headquarters being nearby than just technical merit. RAID is
pretty standard anyway. That said, stay away from software solutions and
non-standard stuff. 
We are still waiting for the SAN thing to settle down a little. It looks
very promising for the server room.

Dr. Christoph Weber              Sen. Applications Specialist
Research Computing, TPC21        858-784-9869 (phone)
The Scripps Research Institute   858-784-9301 (FAX)

========================= END OF ANSWERS =========================

------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Marc C. Nicklaus                        National Institutes of Health
 E-mail: [email-masked]               Bldg 37, Rm 5B29
 Phone:  (301) 402-3111                  37 Convent Dr, MSC 4255       
 Fax:    (301) 496-5839                  BETHESDA, MD 20892-4255    USA 
      http://rex.nci.nih.gov/RESEARCH/basic/medchem/mcnbio.htm
    Laboratory of Medicinal Chemistry, National Cancer Institute
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