Here, Here! I wholeheartedly agree. About the best the providers can do, and we are one of them, is to get you a pretty good start: hardware, software, installation, and training to get the basic system up and running, reliably doing backups on a daily basis. How long you keep them, what you do with the off-site copies, how quickly you can restore all become aspects of the system you must design and constantly tweak to obtain. Sure, the consultants can make recommendations based on what others have done but does that apply to you? Perhaps, but probably not.
Our approach is to gather as many folks as possible into one place, explain what TSM offers and begin to work a process to develop answers to how long, how many, how fast, etc., that define an enterprise backup solution. We make it very clear at the onset that this is "your" backup solution, not ours. TSM can probably do the best job for you. However, if you are not intimately involved with the design and the daily care and feeding of this very complex beast, you've got little chance of meeting anyone's business objectives. Especially your own business'. Kelly J. Lipp Storage Solutions Specialists, Inc. PO Box 51313 Colorado Springs, CO 80949 [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.storsol.com or www.storserver.com (719)531-5926 Fax: (240)539-7175 -----Original Message----- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Prather, Wanda Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2001 8:42 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Enterprise Backup Solutions 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
