This comment on Enterprise Backup Solutions was originally posted on usenix; I'm reposting it here with the author's permission, because it's all too common and all toooooo true!!
-----Original Message----- From: Benjy Feen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2001 5:58 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [SAGE] Enterprise Backup Solution On Thu, Dec 06, 2001 at 12:48:10PM -0800, Ravenwood, Tyler wrote: > On a technical note, we are in the process of putting together a "Request > for Information" to find a turn-key enterprise backup solution. I'm sorry if this is a little harsh, but asking for a turn-key enterprise backup solution is like asking for an inexpensive combat-hardened Ferrari. There's no such thing, and the request itself makes me a little suspicious of your intentions. I'm guessing that you'd like to avoid the experience of building and managing an enterprise backup solution, but still need the enterprise backup solution. It's not possible. This is because someone [probably you] has to understand your environment in order to decide what to back up, how to back it up, how long to keep it, when to discard it, how to restore it [for single arbitrary files, for bare-metal recovery, and everything in between], and many other details. And the bitch is: you actually have to decide these things. There is no software setting entitled "Sign contract with a reputable data records management firm to come to the data center in a big armored truck and return tapes from three months ago and take away the duplicated weekly fulls", and if there were such a setting, you can bet it would default to Off. An enterprise backup solution is a handcrafted artifact and it will require dedicated internal staff for every stage of its life, from initial assessment through day-to-day maintenance. Anyone who says different, as they say, is selling something. Consultants can do a variety of things, but they can't do the right things without a whole lot of time from someone who has the inside scoop on the environment. Being the inside-scoop person can be a full-time job unto itself. Then there's the daily operations work and the oncall duty, which are best handled by fulltime staff. Anyway. > I plan on > sending the RFI to all the usual folks such as CA, Legato, Veritas, but I > was wondering if any of you have had experience with any integrators that I > might contact? The only names I have thus far are StorNet and AvNet. Any > additional names and/or recommendations would be most appreciated. I wholeheartedly recommend Curtis Preston, [EMAIL PROTECTED] I also recommend reading his book, UNIX Backup & Recovery. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565926420/monkeybagel (Note that I get a kickback if you buy it through the above link) Godspeed. -- Benjy Feen benjy(AT)feen.com http://www.monkeybagel.com
