Backup Software Options
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I have been a fan of Veritas Backup Exec for years. However, I have not been very pleased with the product since Symantec bought them a few years back. Now Symantec has jacked up their prices so high that it has become difficult to recommend to anyone. The final icing on the cake came in the form of a separate agent for Windows Server 2008 Active Directory. They are actually charging extra just to take care of a function that has been a part of the basic product since AD was introduced. With Microsoft changing their backup engine starting in Server 2008 the only option I have seen so far is the image based backup. Does anyone have any information on Backup Options other than what I have mentioned? I am considering creating a solution and my researching has not really produced much information. The choices I have found are either built around the Windows Server Backup or are Open source to include other OS's but not specifically Server 2008.
'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control,mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country! from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?' - Jay Leno
i use EMC Retrospect, and i like it.
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
I use Acronis TrueImage Home, and I know they have a server version, but I don't know how much it is.
I have just checked the pricing and it is the same as Symantec. Thanks for your thoughts.
'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control,mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country! from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?' - Jay Leno
Server-based backup solutions are always expensive.
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001 -
I have been a fan of Veritas Backup Exec for years. However, I have not been very pleased with the product since Symantec bought them a few years back. Now Symantec has jacked up their prices so high that it has become difficult to recommend to anyone. The final icing on the cake came in the form of a separate agent for Windows Server 2008 Active Directory. They are actually charging extra just to take care of a function that has been a part of the basic product since AD was introduced. With Microsoft changing their backup engine starting in Server 2008 the only option I have seen so far is the image based backup. Does anyone have any information on Backup Options other than what I have mentioned? I am considering creating a solution and my researching has not really produced much information. The choices I have found are either built around the Windows Server Backup or are Open source to include other OS's but not specifically Server 2008.
'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control,mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country! from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?' - Jay Leno
Bacula. I moved from veritas to bacula over 5 years ago because I hated being limited by the license choices I was forced into. Specifically after buying the product I could only budget some of my servers to be backed up. And then I could not backup databases or linux machines. And forget about open files or remote storage. Too darn expensive.. On top of this every windows upgrade forced me to buy new software so at times I had to limit my windows upgrades to prevent being forced to buy my backup software all over again. http://www.bacula.org/en/[^] There is even a commercial supported version. In the end this was a very good move for my department. I can reliably backup what I want to what ever (remote or local) storage I want including disk and autochangers and there is no extortion. I have around 20TB currently on tape and I have successfully run around 19200 jobs on 50 or so windows and linux clients. [EDIT]I forgot to mention the support is light years ahead of what I had with my paid Veritas product. However, I did not have experience with Symantec's version so I am not sure how their support is .. [/EDIT]
John
modified on Tuesday, December 15, 2009 1:19 PM
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I have been a fan of Veritas Backup Exec for years. However, I have not been very pleased with the product since Symantec bought them a few years back. Now Symantec has jacked up their prices so high that it has become difficult to recommend to anyone. The final icing on the cake came in the form of a separate agent for Windows Server 2008 Active Directory. They are actually charging extra just to take care of a function that has been a part of the basic product since AD was introduced. With Microsoft changing their backup engine starting in Server 2008 the only option I have seen so far is the image based backup. Does anyone have any information on Backup Options other than what I have mentioned? I am considering creating a solution and my researching has not really produced much information. The choices I have found are either built around the Windows Server Backup or are Open source to include other OS's but not specifically Server 2008.
'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control,mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country! from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?' - Jay Leno
Timothy W. Okrey wrote:
However, I have not been very pleased with the product since Symantec bought them a few years back.
Is the product still developed? To me it seems that every single product symantec buys out it only half heartily continues development but spends more effort/money on marketing the product.
John
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I have been a fan of Veritas Backup Exec for years. However, I have not been very pleased with the product since Symantec bought them a few years back. Now Symantec has jacked up their prices so high that it has become difficult to recommend to anyone. The final icing on the cake came in the form of a separate agent for Windows Server 2008 Active Directory. They are actually charging extra just to take care of a function that has been a part of the basic product since AD was introduced. With Microsoft changing their backup engine starting in Server 2008 the only option I have seen so far is the image based backup. Does anyone have any information on Backup Options other than what I have mentioned? I am considering creating a solution and my researching has not really produced much information. The choices I have found are either built around the Windows Server Backup or are Open source to include other OS's but not specifically Server 2008.
'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control,mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country! from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?' - Jay Leno
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Timothy W. Okrey wrote:
However, I have not been very pleased with the product since Symantec bought them a few years back.
Is the product still developed? To me it seems that every single product symantec buys out it only half heartily continues development but spends more effort/money on marketing the product.
John
John M. Drescher wrote:
Is the product still developed? To me it seems that every single product symantec buys out it only half heartily continues development but spends more effort/money on marketing the product.
I agree. It seems like every product that they buy they destroy. Thanks for the vote on Bacula. I did look at this but not that closely.
'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control,mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country! from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?' - Jay Leno
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How unfortunate for him. This is exactly the kind of situation I am trying to avoid. Thanks for the post.
'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control,mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country! from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?' - Jay Leno
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John M. Drescher wrote:
Is the product still developed? To me it seems that every single product symantec buys out it only half heartily continues development but spends more effort/money on marketing the product.
I agree. It seems like every product that they buy they destroy. Thanks for the vote on Bacula. I did look at this but not that closely.
'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control,mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country! from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?' - Jay Leno
Timothy W. Okrey wrote:
Thanks for the vote on Bacula. I did look at this but not that closely.
I would say that if you are only backing up a few windows only machines to disk this probably is not the best product. However if it works well in a department with dozens of machines. It's also great if you need to backup a mix of (windows, macintosh, linux)..
John
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I have been a fan of Veritas Backup Exec for years. However, I have not been very pleased with the product since Symantec bought them a few years back. Now Symantec has jacked up their prices so high that it has become difficult to recommend to anyone. The final icing on the cake came in the form of a separate agent for Windows Server 2008 Active Directory. They are actually charging extra just to take care of a function that has been a part of the basic product since AD was introduced. With Microsoft changing their backup engine starting in Server 2008 the only option I have seen so far is the image based backup. Does anyone have any information on Backup Options other than what I have mentioned? I am considering creating a solution and my researching has not really produced much information. The choices I have found are either built around the Windows Server Backup or are Open source to include other OS's but not specifically Server 2008.
'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control,mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country! from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?' - Jay Leno
Is the storage for your backup a hard drive or some other device, such as a tape or DVD?
Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Copywriting Services
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Is the storage for your backup a hard drive or some other device, such as a tape or DVD?
Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Copywriting Services
Christopher Duncan wrote:
Is the storage for your backup a hard drive or some other device, such as a tape or DVD?
The storage for the backup is rather distributed. I have hard drive disk arrays/ enclosures used for first line backup. I also use an autoloader for backing up these disk images.
'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control,mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country! from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?' - Jay Leno
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
Is the storage for your backup a hard drive or some other device, such as a tape or DVD?
The storage for the backup is rather distributed. I have hard drive disk arrays/ enclosures used for first line backup. I also use an autoloader for backing up these disk images.
'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control,mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country! from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?' - Jay Leno
Back in ancient times, I used tape drives, Zip / Jazz drives, etc. and was thus constrained by software that would talk to that device. These days I back up to other hard drives on the network, including a 1 terrabyte USB drive ($80 from tigerdirect.com). Because of this, my backup scenarios have changed dramatically. I use the command line version of WinZip and simply have batch files launched overnight to archive the data into a logical collection of .zip files. Because Windows now natively supports this format, I can take my USB drive, plug it into any Windows machine on the planet, and have instant access to my data without having to install proprietary software or worry about device support. It's actually quite scandalous how simple and straightforward it is. :-D
Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Copywriting Services
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Back in ancient times, I used tape drives, Zip / Jazz drives, etc. and was thus constrained by software that would talk to that device. These days I back up to other hard drives on the network, including a 1 terrabyte USB drive ($80 from tigerdirect.com). Because of this, my backup scenarios have changed dramatically. I use the command line version of WinZip and simply have batch files launched overnight to archive the data into a logical collection of .zip files. Because Windows now natively supports this format, I can take my USB drive, plug it into any Windows machine on the planet, and have instant access to my data without having to install proprietary software or worry about device support. It's actually quite scandalous how simple and straightforward it is. :-D
Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Copywriting Services
Christopher Duncan wrote:
It's actually quite scandalous how simple and straightforward it is.
I agree it would be simple if all I needed to backup was data, but I need the Active Directory, Exchange and SQL. Each of these introduce different problems and simply zipping would not handle them.
'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control,mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country! from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?' - Jay Leno
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
It's actually quite scandalous how simple and straightforward it is.
I agree it would be simple if all I needed to backup was data, but I need the Active Directory, Exchange and SQL. Each of these introduce different problems and simply zipping would not handle them.
'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control,mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country! from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?' - Jay Leno
I back up my SQL Server databases by including commands in the batch file that stop the service, copy the .mdf, etc. to a temporary directory and then restart the services. This happens an hour or so before the backup fires off, and thus the backup references the temp directory files. I suspect you'd have to write a harness for AD and Exchange. Sounds like far too much fun for any one mortal to have. :)
Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Copywriting Services
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I back up my SQL Server databases by including commands in the batch file that stop the service, copy the .mdf, etc. to a temporary directory and then restart the services. This happens an hour or so before the backup fires off, and thus the backup references the temp directory files. I suspect you'd have to write a harness for AD and Exchange. Sounds like far too much fun for any one mortal to have. :)
Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Copywriting Services
Christopher Duncan wrote:
Sounds like far too much fun for any one mortal to have.
:((
'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control,mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country! from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?' - Jay Leno
-
I have been a fan of Veritas Backup Exec for years. However, I have not been very pleased with the product since Symantec bought them a few years back. Now Symantec has jacked up their prices so high that it has become difficult to recommend to anyone. The final icing on the cake came in the form of a separate agent for Windows Server 2008 Active Directory. They are actually charging extra just to take care of a function that has been a part of the basic product since AD was introduced. With Microsoft changing their backup engine starting in Server 2008 the only option I have seen so far is the image based backup. Does anyone have any information on Backup Options other than what I have mentioned? I am considering creating a solution and my researching has not really produced much information. The choices I have found are either built around the Windows Server Backup or are Open source to include other OS's but not specifically Server 2008.
'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control,mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country! from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?' - Jay Leno
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I have been a fan of Veritas Backup Exec for years. However, I have not been very pleased with the product since Symantec bought them a few years back. Now Symantec has jacked up their prices so high that it has become difficult to recommend to anyone. The final icing on the cake came in the form of a separate agent for Windows Server 2008 Active Directory. They are actually charging extra just to take care of a function that has been a part of the basic product since AD was introduced. With Microsoft changing their backup engine starting in Server 2008 the only option I have seen so far is the image based backup. Does anyone have any information on Backup Options other than what I have mentioned? I am considering creating a solution and my researching has not really produced much information. The choices I have found are either built around the Windows Server Backup or are Open source to include other OS's but not specifically Server 2008.
'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control,mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country! from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?' - Jay Leno
I second Bacula. It beats the socks off of MS SCDPM[^]. Brilliant piece of software. I have at my home/office and implemented successfully at my client's first project and in a few days to be implemented on their second project. This is an awesome starter: http://www.lucasmanual.com/mywiki/Bacula[^]
If the post was helpful, please vote, eh! Current activities: Book: Devils by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
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I have been a fan of Veritas Backup Exec for years. However, I have not been very pleased with the product since Symantec bought them a few years back. Now Symantec has jacked up their prices so high that it has become difficult to recommend to anyone. The final icing on the cake came in the form of a separate agent for Windows Server 2008 Active Directory. They are actually charging extra just to take care of a function that has been a part of the basic product since AD was introduced. With Microsoft changing their backup engine starting in Server 2008 the only option I have seen so far is the image based backup. Does anyone have any information on Backup Options other than what I have mentioned? I am considering creating a solution and my researching has not really produced much information. The choices I have found are either built around the Windows Server Backup or are Open source to include other OS's but not specifically Server 2008.
'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control,mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country! from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?' - Jay Leno
I use a product called StorageCraft ShadowProtect (http://www.storagecraft.com/[^]). It's very stable, and very fast. I use the Desktop version, but they sell Server and Small Business editions.
