On Wed, 2004-09-08 at 20:29, Mario Lombardo wrote:
> but I use it because it's easier to point to a corporate entity when it
> comes to legal issues of intellectual property loss.
I've seen years of data lost using NT Backup / Backup Exec. Liability
is pretty non-existent in software. In fact I was having a discussion
the other day how Microsoft doesn't offer SLAs, except via hardware OEMs
or to enteprise-level customers. The irony is rather funny.
GNU Tar 1.13 itself, which is what BRU seems to be based on, is very
_non-standard_, and _not_ POSIX-compliant. There is a long story behind
this (1.14alpha is changing this), but it has to do with limitations in
POSIX prior to the Austin Group and POSIX-2001/SUS v3 revisions (GNU
came up with its own extensions). The new POSIX-2001 ustar format, and
its replacement cpio/tar utility in pax, is backward/forward
compatible. Even NT 5+ ships the pax utility.
Hence why one should use Jorg's star program instead. Jorg has gotten
"beaten up" on hits CDRecord-ProDVD licensing, but the man develops
good, standards-compliant software that no one else will -- the majority
of it GPL, including star. Red Hat has shipped star as its recommended
archiver since CL3.0 (Red Hat Linux 8) on-ward. It's fully
POSIX-compliant, supports POSIX EA/ACLs and other features on Solaris
(UFS) and Linux (Ext3, XFS), and most of the non-POSIX GNU Tar
extensions.
Unfortunately, the Austin Group didn't address my main issue,
compression. And _anytime_ you compress ustar, you toast its
recoverability. So _none_ of these programs address that issue.
That's why I use afio, with per-file compression in the archive -- i.e.,
it compresses files _before_ going into the archive. It's not flawless,
but it still outputs 5KB block ustar streams that can be read with most
any cpio, pax or tar implementation. It also has features for spanning
volumes.
Regarding IP loss, you can't really even hold corporate entities
accountable in the software world at all.
> The whole rest of the operation uses opensource stuff.
What is "open source stuff"?
Sometimes "open source stuff" isn't exactly the best.
Jorg's star is a far better ustar solution than GNU Tar 1.13 right now.
Luckily it's GPL.
If I'm going to need compression, I use afio to create my ustar stream,
with per-file compression as the files go in.
> It's just the backup that's proprietary.
That wasn't my point at all. If BRU did the job, then I wouldn't care
what it costs, or if it had a "friendly license." If it does the job,
then it's worth the price.
God knows I'd have no issue paying Microsoft dollars if their software
"did the job." But as an original NT 3.1 beta tester and someone who
has deployed every version since at major companies over the last 12
years, I can tell you its a nightmare to maintain versus Freedomware
("open system") solutions, or Standardware ("open system") solutions
like from NetApp or Sun.
As such, and I'm trying not to be argumentative, but "open" and
"proprietary" are rather simplistic tags. Don't feel bad if you use
something "proprietary" because if it mitigates your business risk
better than "open," then it's a good move.
> Pretty soon, I may be using AMANDA anyway :(
Amanda is just a system built around various archiving utilities. I
typically built my own set of SSH scripts as necessary.
Unless the company already has a deployed, enterprise disaster recovery
solution. They I deploy the Linux agent for whatever system they are
using.
-- Bryan J. Smith b.j.smith@ieee.org ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Communities don't have rights. Only individuals in the community have rights. ... That idea of community rights is firmly rooted in the 'Communist Manifesto.'" -- Michael Badnarik----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
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