[ILUG] backup questions

[Dermot Hanley]

Hi,

> anyone have recomendations on a backup solution using unix?
> (either Linux or OSF/Tru64)

Legato Networker seems the beast for the job.

> Ability to circumvent NT's very annoying open file problem,
> where you can't backup important files without kicking people off, or
shuttind down
> services. (good idea in theory, but i'd rather take my chances and
have some
> kind of backup of a file than none at all)

Tough luck, no backup software seems to adequately solve this problem,
although I remember looking at a module you could get for ArcServe 6
which did a block-level image backup of a server volume (just don't ask
about file consistency on open files!). Perhaps the files could be put
on a UNIX box (and yes, Legato has Linux clients, best supported is
RedHat) and then use Samba to allow access to them from NT boxes?

> Related wish: ability to cleanly backup MS SQL online.   ...sigh...

All the high-end solutions (Legato, ArcServe, etc) allow on-line backup
of MS-SQL though you'll pay a sweet penny. You don't have to bring
MS-SQL server offline to perform dumps, why not do regular database &
transaction dumps to disk and use something as simple as ntbackup (or
whatever) to backup the dumps?

Regards,
Dermot