kolstad@rmtc.Central.Sun.COM (Rob Kolstad) (07/16/90)
[
i thought comp.org.usenix would be a better place for this. the orginal
can be found in misc.jobs.offered. of course this could be a job for the
taking. pjg
]
This didn't seem to make it out, this is my second post:
On Wednesday, June 13th, 1990, over 100 (maybe as many as 200) people
gathered in a meeting room at the Summer 1990 USENIX conference to discuss
the requirements that users see for backup products. The meeting was
scheduled as a follow-on to the morning's system administration panel and
was intended to be a one-hour forum during which user's of backup products
could make their needs and wants known to all who would listen. This
document summarizes that meeting.
Rob Kolstad chaired the meeting and opened with an invitation to any
vendors present to give a five minute summary of their product. In no
particular order, the vendors included:
Legato Systems, Inc.
Joseph Moran
260 Sheridan Ave.
Palo Alto, CA 94306
415-329-7880
FAX: 415-329-8898
mojo@legato.com
Legato's recently announced system claims on-line backup capability,
complete network backup schemes, an index of all files backedup, and
several features for ease-of-use.
UniSolutions
Haral Tsitsivas
2103 Mathews Avenue
Suite 1
Redondo Beach, CA 90278
213-542-0068
FAX: 213-370-4024
uunet!ashtate!unisol!haral
SysAdmin provides comprehensive UNIX system administration utilities
including account management, multi-level file backup and restore, tape
library management, tape manipulation utilities, system security
monitoring, network administration and monitoring, resource accounting and
reporting (2 versions: one in sysadmin, one called jobacct), and
performance monitoring.
est - Enhanced Software Technologies (not present but nevertheless mentioned)
Ted Cook
5032 S. Ash Avenue #107
Tempe, AZ 85282
602-820-0042
FAX: 602-491-0865
asuvax!mcdphx!estinc!fnf [Fred Fish]
est manufactures the BRU product. It includes: data verification, error
detection and recovery, file comparison mode, special file dumps, data
compression, multi-volume archives, double buffering for improved
performance, network support, hardware/software independence, random
access archives, and unattended execution from cron. est offers a 30 day
free evaluation.
Transarc AFS 3.0
Philip L. Lehman
Manager, File Systems Marketing
Transarc Corporation
The Gulf Tower
707 Grant Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
412-338-4400
FAX: 412-338-4044
pll@transarc.com
Transarc handed out thick packets at their vendor exhibit. They sell the
Andrew filesystem with its workstation performance improvements (due to
local cacheing of files) and other features (notably copy-on-write
files). For backup, they mark files as copy-on-write, backup the original
copies, then migrate forward to the newly changed versions -- thus
effecting 100% perfect on-line backups.
Advanced Archive Products, Inc. (AAP)
Bryan Sarandrea
Director of Marketing
14 Inverness Drive East, Building D, Suite 144
Englewood, CO 80112
303-792-9727
FAX: 303-792-2465
AAP provides a UNIX filesystem called AMASS which integrates optical disk
and tape jukeboxes making the entire capacity of the jukebox appear as an
online disk (on your host). This allows AMASS to be used by existing
system utilities and third-party applications without modification for
such tasks as file archiving and system backups.
Epoch Systems (not represented but nevertheless mentioned)
Epoch Systems
8 Technology Drive
Westborough, MA
508-836-4711
FAX: 508-836-4884
Epoch manufactures software and hardware which is delivered as a box which
connects to your ethernet and offers virtually infinite (1TB) storage as a
set of NFS mount point. Their scheme stages files through magnetic
storage and gives the illusion of an NFS filesystem of very large size.
Zetaco -- NETstor Back-Up and NETstor Archivist (TM)
Zetaco
James P. Shafer
Sales Representative, Network Products
6850 Shade Oak Road
Eden Prairie, MN 55344
512-941-9480
NETstor Back-Up backs-up `a whole network automatically onto rewriteable
optical disks in a jukebox.' [Julie Stevens, ZETACO] Features include:
central, automatic unattended operation (including network backup),
complete scheduling and configuration control, optical disk (both WORM and
rewriteable), fast restore, and support for Sun, Apollo, DEC and other
vendors.
BUMP (BRL)
BUMP is a file migration system from BRL. It is not a `product' per
se.
File Motel
Also not a product, see Andrew Hume's article in the San Francisco
USENIX proceedings.
RASH
Also not a product, see the San Diego USENIX proceedings.
SuperSaver
I know very little about this but have a network address:
ics.uci.edu.
UniTree
General Atomics
Mike Hardy
619-455-3757
UniTree, derived from DataTree, is a new filesystem that uses
accommodations for NFS to implement its own data structures on the
magnetic media. Complete file migration, backup, and volume management
complement improved NFS throughput.
Ubackup and backup.unet
John Cunningham
UniTech Software, Inc.
1800 Alexander Bell Dr., #101
Reston, VA 22091
703-264-3301
Ubackup allows secure data backups and user-requested restores. It
requires minimal operator intervention and features an on-line catalog.
Ubackup includes multiple volume management. Backup.unet offers automated
tape management in a centralized and decentralized environment. [From
1990 UniForum Directory]
REELBACKUP
Paul Stutler
Sceptre Corp.
P. O. Box 8031
Ann Arbor, MI 48107
313-665-8778
FAX: 313-665-5707
REELBACKUP is based on mainframe procedures for improved reliability and
flexibility. Features include many user interfaces, IBM-standard tape
labels, tape library management, monitoring system, full and incremental
dumps, flexible and easy scheduling, and handling of global filesystems
NFS and RFS. [From 1990 UniForum Directory]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The UniForum Directory lists approximately 10 other products that were not
brought up in the first half of the session.
After the commercial announcements, Kolstad took a poll of how many GB are
backed up on a site-wide basis (e.g., for a full dump). The results were
(all rounded to nearest GB):
size #sites
0 - 1 5
2 - 4 15
5 - 8 18
9 - 15 17
16 - 20 10
21 - 30 6
31 - 40 3
41 - 50 4
70 2
120 1
300 1
1,000 1 (LLL, *sigh*)
With this data in hand, the next phase commenced. The participants
were asked to to name important aspects of dump programs. After the
aspect was defined and discussed, the group raised their hands as to
the perceived importance of the feature. The features below are
presented in the order they were suggested. Three stars (we used
magtapes in the presentation) means about 100%, two stars means more
like 50%, one star means just a few, and zero stars means hardly any.
*** Network backup speed
*** OnLine (unanimous)
*** Catalog
*** Volume Management
*** Verify Media after write
Verify Data after write
** Run dumps from user level
*** Run dumps unattended
*** Multiple architecture/Heterogeneous environment dumps
* Noon root restore
*** Complete dumps (on cool media) in less than one `shift'
* Fault Tolerance (reproduce a lost dump tape, e.g.?)
*** All functionality of current dump (as opposed to tar, e.g., special files)
- GUI (5 people) [Karen Shannon claims I manipulated this vote. Maybe...]
tapetool functionality (a Sun program with which I am unfamiliar)
* Spin >= 2 tapes simultaneously
* Vendor-system supplied (as opposed to third party)
*** Multiple dumps/tape
*** Good EOT processing
** Low system impact
* redundant data (e.g., Justessen(sp?) codes on tape)
* PDP-10 OPSER functionality
*** Highly configurable by function
*** Robust restore
* decentralized control
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Most people seem to have had a good time -- I know I did.
Thanks to all who participated!
Rob Kolstad
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