ADSM-L

Re: ADSM Versus Veritas

1998-09-08 21:12:48
Subject: Re: ADSM Versus Veritas
From: Andrew Swift <Andrew.Swift AT CENTRAL.COLESMYER.COM DOT AU>
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1998 11:12:48 +1000
Fairly easy to answer....In Australia, I have not heard of any products from
Innovation.

Also, our company already had relationships with both vendors invited, and
they were perceived
to be the 2 most likely to be capable of providing and supporting the total
hardware/software solution
in our geographical location.

Regards,
Andrew.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sanders, David [SMTP:DSanders AT INTERNAL.MASSMUTUAL DOT COM]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 1998 7:57 PM
> To:   ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Subject:      Re: ADSM Versus Veritas
>
> I'm courious, based on your criteria for acceptance, why the products from
> Innovation weren't included in your analysis??
>
> Dave Sanders
> Sr. Technical Consultant
> DSanders AT massmutual DOT com
> MassMutual / The Blue Chip Company
> 1295 State St, E060, Springfield, MA 01111
> 413-744-5095
>
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Andrew Swift [SMTP:Andrew.Swift AT CENTRAL.COLESMYER.COM DOT AU]
> > Sent: Sunday, September 06, 1998 7:49 PM
> > To:   ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> > Subject:      Re: ADSM Versus Veritas
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > We recently completed a RFP on a total enterprise backup solution, with
> > the
> > 2 competing
> > solutions being Veritas and STK silos, verses ADSM and IBM3494
> libraries.
> > The solutions
> > were required to be able to backup UNIX (various flavours), NT, and MVS,
> > and
> > the RFP was
> > very detailed, and took future upgrade paths, supportabilty etc, to the
> > tune
> > of 150 different
> > specific requirements, most measurable, and some perceived (eg support
> > expertise and
> > product supportability)
> >
> > This was a SOLUTION comparison, rather than a direct software
> comparison,
> > and the
> > ADSM/3494 solution won the RFP, but it was VERY close.
> >
> > On the software comparision section of the RFP, both products were
> > exceptionally close,
> > each having strengths and weaknesses.
> > The main differences being:
> > ADSM
> > =====
> > *       tape retention controls perceived to be better
> > *       reporting facilities better.
> > *       support against accidental reads better.
> > *       Could maintain duplicate media management databases.
> > *       Supported cental product license administration.
> > *       Product backup of itself, and its recoverability was perceived
> to
> > be
> > better.
> > *       Simple migration of files to different media.
> > *       Perceived expertise and support (within Australia) was better -
> > might be the other way around elsewhere.
> >
> > VERITAS
> > =======
> > *       EXCELLENT protection from accidental overwrites (recognises tar,
> > cpio etc).
> > *       Supports more operating systems.
> > *       Is more easily restored to a standalone system (without the
> > product
> > installed)
> > *       better central backup policy administration of servers.
> > *       Can multi stream to a single tape drive (maximising tape drive
> > write
> > performance)
> > *       Can perform backups and restores using different media formats.
> >
> > Some of the differences here were small, and varying degrees of
> importance
> > were placed
> > on them specific to our requirements. In the end, with the rate of
> > development, and if our
> > requirements were different, we may have chosen the other way.
> > The primary driver for our RFP was a central backup solution. Had it
> been
> > a
> > distributed
> > solution, the winner may have been differnt.
> >
> > An earlier post by Kells Kearney to the group regarding this has also
> been
> > CUT/Pasted below.
> >
> > Good luck,
> > Andrew.
> >
> > Moir,Betsy wrote:
> >
> > > I was wondering if any of you more open-minded UNIX administrators
> could
> > > share your experiences with other UNIX backup products and your
> reasons
> > for
> > > choosing ADSM.  I'm attending a meeting next Tuesday with a group of
> > UNIX
> > > administrators and managers to discuss why they should get rid of
> their
> > other
> > > UNIX backup products (no, I don't know what they are, but I do know
> > there
> > are
> > > several of them) and start using ADSM, and I'd like to have as much
> > > first-hand knowledge as possible before I walk in there.  Among their
> > > concerns is the backing up very, very large databases in a timely
> > fashion.
> >
> >    Hmmm....  Well, I can't comment on very much long term use (> 6
> > months),
> > but in a previous incarnation I worked with both Netbackup and Legato.
> >
> >   For the one installation I did with Legato, my impressions of it was
> > that
> > it
> > was
> > very nice graphically, but didn't have a whole lot going for it
> scheduling
> > wise.
> > You
> > could choose from a number of different calendaring options, and even
> set
> > up
> > a
> > few different types of schedules.  (I was using a slightly crippled one
> > server
> > version.)
> > The only irritating thing I found about Legato was that you couldn't
> > schedule a
> > script
> > to backup a database and have Legato deal nicely with things --- you
> > basically
> > were
> > reducing to shutting down the database in cron, hope that the database
> > could
> > be
> > backed
> > up in the backup window, and then start the database in cron again.
> Very
> > ugly.
> > Having said that, for one install for one server, it seemed to do ok.
> :)
> >
> >  During the time that I was working with Netbackup, there were a couple
> of
> > things
> >
> > about it that I really liked:
> >   - unless you used MPX format, everything was in gnu tar format.  So,
> you
> > never
> >     had to worry about database problems, because if you knew what tape
> > was
> > the
> >     latest one, you could ALWAYS get to your data.  (Came in handy --
> > don't
> > want
> >     to talk about it, tho... :)
> >   - there were pre and post scripts that ran backups, that were actually
> > fairly
> > well
> >     documented.  Very useful for backing up databases or other tricky
> > things
> > that
> >
> >     need unusual care and feeding.
> >   - the hierarchical servers that netbackup has are very nice.  The idea
> > is
> > that
> > you
> >     store data about clients on the local server, and just back up the
> > database
> > information
> >     to the central server.  So, you store backup data locally, and
> inform
> > the
> > 'most
> >     important' Netbackup server what got backed up. (The ADSM server
> stuff
> > seems
> >     a little more than strange in comparison, but it has different
> design
> > principles.)
> >   - netbackup is a traditional unix product, in that it lives and
> breathes
> > by the
> > motto
> >     of 'flat files and grep' principles.  You want reporting?  Write a
> > script
> > that tails the
> >     logfile and dump out events to syslog, Tivoli TEC, HP Openview or
> BMC
> > Patrol.
> >
> >    You want to do something outside of what's out-of-the-box?  Look at
> the
> > file
> >     formats and do all of the things that customer support people have
> > aneurysms
> > over. :)
> >   - from my few experiences with dealing with the support organization
> > with
> > veritas, I have
> >     only good things to say about them.  Very good knowledge of their
> > product,
> > and
> >     within two-hour resolution time AFTER business hours!
> >
> >    Taking into account the fact that I haven't used it in about a year,
> > these are
> > my gripes
> > about netbackup:
> >  - I've seen people shot over better GUI implementations.  Talk about
> > UGLY!
> > (I
> > think
> >    that it has improved lately.) Unless you use it all the time, it's
> > actually
> > difficult to
> >     remember how to navigate through the interface to do some
> operations.
> > People
> >
> >     are told "Yeah, it's a bad GUI, but it's a lights out product -- you
> > should
> > never
> >     have to touch it."  Uh huh.
> >  - Tape management is manual, and sometimes error prone.  Trying to add
> > tapes
> >     to a storage group can be a complete pain.  I never got around to
> > figuring
> > out
> >     some of the file formats, and then modifying them to add tapes to
> the
> > storage
> >
> >     group, but it probably would have been much easier to do!
> >  - Having seen ADSM and its per session statistics, it is a complete
> pain
> > to
> > try
> > to
> >     figure out throughput rates or anything sadistically meaningful
> using
> > netbackup.
> >
> >   In regards to large database backup, I think that something that can
> do
> > table
> > backups or incremental backups would be good.  Presumably, with a
> database
> > that large, you would be doing online backups, so you would need a tool
> of
> > some
> > sort so that you don't back up a huge database file/raw device every
> day.
> >
> > The only opinion I can offer on database backup is to avoid EBU. I
> finally
> > beat
> > it into
> > submission, but I'm not convinced that I could bring it back from
> > something
> > catastrophic.  For a 'recreational impossibility', try doing database
> > backups and
> >
> > restores on a cluster (pick your HA software flavour!).  Not a very
> > enjoyable
> > experience.  But who knows, in the year since I used EBU, they may have
> > even
> > fixed the bug in solaris where you can't get it to delete old archives
> > (not
> > that
> > I'm
> > bitter, mind you.  And I'm MUCH better now! :)
> >
> >    IMHO, for a small company, any backup product (including ufsdump!)
> will
> > work
> > just fine.  For medium size companies (100-1000 computers), all of the
> NT
> > products
> > start to bomb out, but Legato and Netbackup are still  manageable.  For
> > large
> > companies, I honestly don't think there's any choice except ADSM, due to
> > its
> > database
> > and the incremental only policy.
> >
> >
> > kells
> >
> > Any coincidence of opinion between myself and Mainland Information
> Systems
> > is
> > exactly that..
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: malkit [SMTP:malkit AT UDI.CO DOT IL]
> > > Sent: Sunday, September 06, 1998 10:59 PM
> > > To:   ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> > > Subject:      ADSM Versus Veritas
> > >
> > > Hello !
> > >
> > > Is there any one on our ADSM list that choose ADSM over Veritas. If
> so,
> > > can you please share with me your decisions to go with ADSM and not
> > > Veritas. It is very important to one of our customers decision !!!
> > >
> > > Thank you
> > >
> > > Malkit Hayun , UDI
> > > Application Engineer
> > > Office:972-3-9233440
> > > Fax:   972-3-9233441
> > > Mobile:972-52-834575
> > > Email: malkit AT udi.co DOT il
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