Re: human-readable tapelabels
2003-05-29 20:18:08
torsdagen den 29 maj 2003 kl 16.02 skrev Mathias Körber:
I am about to deploy Amanda for a customer, and there are
some concerns that the end-users responsible for inserting the
correct tapes may not be up to the task.
In detail:
- users will not read the daily email telling them which
tape is expected and want to have a scheme as simple as
possible
- users will not understand that 18 tapes make a 3 week cycle
(assuming weekday backups only). Ie, the 'a few extra tapes'
may be confusing
- Amanda's way to say 'a new tape' will confuse the use if they
actually
read the emails. They will want to be told exactly which tape
to insert (or better deduct using dead simple reasoning)
- should a tape need to be skipped (for whatever reason) and
eg tape 15 follow tape 13, thsi will later confuse the users as
the sequence will get jumbled.
We obviously want to hold to a minimum support questions regarding
which tape
is to be used andwhy is the sequence not like ...
My boss sugegsted a simple scheme of
Week 1 Monday
Week 1 Tuesday
thru
Week 3 Thursday
Week 3 Friday
I understand that Amanda's way of labelling and rotating tapes in a non
fixed manner is superior, but may
be beyond the users' grasp.
Amanda is, as far as I've understood, not designed for these kinds of
scenarios.
As I see it, you have two "good" options:
1: Write the Amanda labels on the stickers, and tell them to change
tapes as they are told by the daily e-mails. If asked by anybody how
the tapecycle really works, mumble something about magic. I fail to see
how users could be confused operating a system that tells them exactly
what to do and when. :-) In fact, you could probably make a relatively
simple script which would simply display on the computer screen what
tape is expected next in case logging in for checking e-mail is too
time consuming and/or complicated.
2: Use a far less complex a solution than Amanda, such as running
gnutar or dump in a cron job, writing it to tape. Optionally include an
"Amanda-like" tape label in the front of the tape to check for human
error. This requires the user to understand the system in order to
operate it. Sure, it's very simple, but it's still more difficult than
just telling them to "put in the tape that the computer tells them to".
To conclude: What's the problem in asking users to read an e-mail and
simply choose the tape to insert into the drive based on that? And is
it really up to the end user to understand all the details underlying
their systems, and the responsibility for a system administrator to
dumb them down to something inferior just to make them more
"understandable"?
--
Per von Zweigbergk <pvz AT e.kth DOT se>
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