On Sat, 12 Oct 2002, Greg A. Woods wrote:
# [ On Saturday, October 12, 2002 at 18:16:04 (-0600), Rick Kelly wrote: ]
# > Subject: Re: FYI: upgrading GNU tar
# >
# > Indeed, rmt is very important. I do remote dumps with both tar and
# > dump. I have 15 systems and 2 tape drives.
#
# Maybe you might think about using Amanda.  It makes it easier to get
# more reliable backups with guaranteed coverage of everything you deem
# important, at the frequencies you deem important, and without really
# increasing the complexity as the number of client systems increases.
#
# Amanda can also make finding the right tape to do restores much easier
# too, and you can easily do restores across the network, though you're
# not force to (nor are you forced to use amanda to do restores at all).
#
# Amanada uses its own network protocols and can internally use dump
# and/or tar depending on your requirements.  (i.e. it's not reliant on
# rmt support on either clients or servers.)  I think backup images can
# easily be compressed before or after they cross the network too.

The problem with Amanda, IIRC, unless it has been fixed recently, is
that Amanda does not support multi-volume dumps.  This is a shortcoming
which needs to be addressed if it hasn't already.

I also see this problem with every program using "its own network
protocols".  Why not make use of components which already exist?

Also, dump/restore's complexity also does not increase as the number
of clients increases, really.  It just means finding a way of doing
it for the systems (which, granted, Amanda does attempt to solve).

				--*greywolf;
--
NetBSD: Are you old enough to run it?