Hello Jim,
Right! Still here lurking around the info-afs...
I am currently with Hitachi Data Systems, (check out real hot Open SAN and
real nice storage solutions at www.hds.com Oups! Sorry... ;-) but my
previous employer WM-Data Scania is still using the CAM package to my
knowledge.
The bottom line as I remember it, was to have the cam-daemon get the right
credentials in order to be able to do the backup in AFS space. I think we
used reauth for that. Also the backup script will need to keep track of
things like ACL's.
Fortunately AFS, as you know, use ACL's only on directories not on files,
which I might add is the greatest blessing of AFS for the sysadm, so we
kept a small file that was generated just before backup in each directory
(named it .acl if I rember right). That way the ACL info is stored on tape,
and can then be applied to the restored directories accordingly at the time
of a restore. Another thing that was done just before the backup is to
gather vol-mountpoint information and store that info in a file that also
gets backed up.
The objective obviously was to gather enough info about the cell to tape so
that we could recreate the entire cell with all the AFS specifics at the
time of a total disaster. I am quite sure I have forgot some bits and pieces
around this. Keep asking, and the people at the site might wake up and
reply. I know they are lurking around this list ;-) At least they can tell
you if the stuff is still up and running, and wether it still does it's job.
My feeling is that the hottest thing around backups right now is the Veritas
block level consolidated incremental backup. How's that for a long curly
name!
They really solve the backup bandwidth problem by not backing! Just like AFS
solves the distribution problem by not distributing. (what I mean is that in
AFS the "distribution" of files is done by the call back mechanism in the
client cache which is real cool. I still think AFS is among the coolest
software around together with things like stuff found at www.vmware.com ...)
One great thing would be if Transarc could (I know you _can_ I'm just
teasing you a bit ;-) make it possible to have AFS vicep's reside on Veritas
VxFS/VM, then you might be able to do block level backups of AFS volumes...
Then again there is NDMP around the corner and serverless backups across the
SAN and...
Another place to look might be the Harbor solution that do large backups
real fast by copying data internally in e.g the 7700E storage subsystem and
up to the storage library across ESCON. But then you need to have a
Mainframe in place. Not very useful for smaller sites or sites that have
thrown their mainframe out the window (need a big window for that ;-)
Cheers,
/peo
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Barlow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Monday, October 25, 1999 10:49 PM
Subject: AFS backups to CAM
|
|Is anyone doing their AFS backups to CAM (StorageTek's Central Archive
|Manager). I remember someone giving a talk at a Decorum (I believe it
|was Per-Ola Mard?) who said they were doing their backups to CAM. We are
|using CAM as our enterprise wide backups for workstations and I am thinking
|about moving our AFS backups to CAM and wanted input from other sites that
|are currently doing this. Thanks.
|
|
|--
|James J. Barlow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
|Senior System Engineer
|National Center for Supercomputing Applications
|605 East Springfield Avenue Voice : (217)244-6403
|Champaign, IL 61820 Cell : (217)840-0601
|http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/People/jbarlow Fax : (217)244-1987
|
