[plug] Open source drive copy for multiple OSes

[Bernd Felsche]

sothisistheinternet <sothisistheinternet at gmail.com> wrote:
>On 8/28/07, Gavin Chester <sales at ecosolutions.com.au> wrote:
>> On Tue, 2007-08-28 at 22:32 +0800, Gavin Chester wrote:
>> > On Tue, 2007-08-28 at 20:04 +0800, sothisistheinternet wrote:

>> > For backup with/without compression try "rdiff-backup" - it
>> > also offers the benefit of maximum speed by using rsync under
>> > the hood once you've done the initial backup.

>> I hit send too soon the first time. The above should have said
>> "...  benefit of maximum speed by using rsync under the hood
>> _because_ once you've done the initial backup it only backs-up
>> changed files bit-wise (byte-wise?)"

rsync's very efficient for large systems backing up over slow
networks but takes a while to set up or a lot of space on the
"backup media".

>> > For cloning a complete os for deployment across many cloned
>> > machines, with no file or link exclusions, try "clonezilla".

>My employer is willing to let me test out open source software (and I
>will be looking into your suggestions), but today has decided on the
>linux+windows version of Acronis Server for our regular server
>backups/images.

Bacula scales better and is free. www.bacula.org

Bacula has the ability to control backups from one machine, telling
a file daemon on one client to backup a set of named files to a
storage daemon (which has tape drives of a huge drive) on yet
another machine. Catalogues of files backed up are maintained in a
relational database (pick one of MySQL, postgresql, sqllite, ...)
and individual files can be restored easily from a controlling
console running anywhere on the network.

It's also possible to restore files from a backup to a different
machine.

At present, bacula's "shortcoming" is that some configuration is
done in files and that there's no point-and-click interface (yet) to
do "routine" tasks like restoring files or performing ad-hoc backups.

It works on Unix/Linux, Windows and MacOSX.

After listing the features and explaining how it could work
efficiently on a nation-wide network, somebody asked me today how
much it costs. :-)
-- 
/"\ Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning, Perth, Western Australia
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