Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 09:37:44 -0700 From: markham breitbach <markhamb@corp.ssimicro.com> To: Ian Lord <lordi@msdi.ca>, "freebsd-questions@freebsd.org" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Backup solution for freeBSD/Symantec Backup exec porting Message-ID: <54808DD8.9070606@corp.ssimicro.com> In-Reply-To: <999d7e80e60f466682c736f275b75788@Server02.ad.ezmax.ca> References: <999d7e80e60f466682c736f275b75788@Server02.ad.ezmax.ca>
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On 2014-12-03 5:01 PM, Ian Lord wrote: > Hi, > > I've been using freebsd since version 4.11 and always dealt with backup= semi manually with dump, copying files over, database dumps, etc. > > By the way, not as a home user, but for 8-10 servers used in a SAAS app= lication. We are looking for something more serious as we are dealing wit= h about 10TB of data for documents, and 600-800 gigs of SQL database. Eve= rything is redundant, replicated, etc, but we need a serious backup solut= ion. > > We are thinking of purchasing a DELL Powervault LT2000 device which con= sists of 1 or 2 LTO6 tape drives with 24 slots giving 60TB of data space = for retention > > I've read a lot on the subject and many people seem to do dumps on a re= mote HD, etc, but to get to 60TB of disk space would cost a lot and would= be less reliable then a tape library in my opinion. I guess it depends a little bit on your application, but I am assuming you are looking for something to do daily backups. Speaking from some rather miserable personal experiences, I would strongly recommend not using tapes for backup. Pretty much every tape backup system I have used has been unable to restore any/all of the files required when I needed them. They always worked great in all the tests, but when it came down to an actual failure the tapes were useless.= When you are looking at costs, don't forget to factor in the cost of replacing ALL the tapes every 30 or 60 days. That's probably about $500-$1000/month. A reasonable life expectancy for most HDDs is about 3 years, and usually you can push them to 5, so just the cost of tapes over a 3 year span will buy you over 500TB of storage up front.=20 Backblaze and Google have some interesting reports on drive lifespan as well (LMGTFY...) > > We need something automated and reliable. Hopefully, with a nice gui to= restore individual files etc... > > We already have backup exec 2014 for our windows servers, but they don'= t make an agent for freebsd. > Symantec has netbackup which supports FreeBSD, but it seems really expe= nsive (A rep will call me, tells all about the price lol) > > I've read on Bacula and Amanda, and it really doesn't feel like a produ= ct mature enough (outdated documentation, no clear indication the tape li= brary would work, etc). Their commercial counterparts are really expensiv= es... I'm afraid to purchase hardware, new server, etc and end up with no= thing working. The great thing about running something like Bacula or Amanda on FreeBSD is that it will run on just about anything (even that old 486 propping open the server room door, really!) Install it, and try it out. See if it meets your needs on a small subset of your data. It will take some time, but if it works, you save your company a pile of money and look like a star, and if not then you can also say you have looked at all the available options and you look like a star! :) We have developed an in-house system that works very similar to Bacula and Amanda: basically rsync and rotating hardlinks, that allow us to store incremental backups that look like full backup sets, and since usually less then 5% of the data changes on a daily basis (YMMV) we can keep a lot of them on one disk system, and do things like weekly/monthly/yearly snapshots.=20 The key to using this is developing a restore procedure BEFORE you need it and documenting it thoroughly, so when you actually need it 12 months later, you can follow the procedure quickly and easily (or the new guy can). It never hurts to find some time to do DR drills as well. Set aside a Friday and do a test restore to a spare system. > > In the past, we used backup exec to backup freebsd using their legacy b= ackup agents in linux compat mode and it was working really well. We trie= d (without extensive effort) to make work their linux agent on freebsd wi= thout success. > > So my questions are: > > 1- Does anyone have a tape library working with bacula or Amanda ?= Does it work well ? (meaning stable, reliable and good performance) > > 2- Would anyone be willing to try to make backup exec work on free= bsd using linux compat mode ? I would be willing to finance the project u= p to 500$ perhaps other people reading this could also contribute to have= more man hours on this task. > > I love so much FreeBSD Over Linux, but it's always hard to get support = from vendors... We are even evaluating to switch our fileservers to Cento= s (where we also dump sql databases and could replicate important data fr= om freeBSD) to be able to easily back them up using Backup Exec's agent. = But this would be my last resort as I don't want to support linux box whe= re everything else in in FreeBSD. > > Any help/comment would be appreciated. > > Thanks > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Ian Lord > MSD Informatique > 143 Rue des Fauvettes > St-Colomban (Qu=E9bec) J5K 0E2 > T=E9l: (514) 776-6734 #201 > Sans Frais: 1(877) 776-6734 #201 > http://www.msdi.ca/ > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd= =2Eorg" >
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