On 12/10/12 02:48 PM, Remco Post wrote:

On 10 dec. 2012, at 20:41, Skylar Thompson <skylar2 AT U.WASHINGTON DOT EDU> 
wrote:

This is very true. One of the things I forgot to mention is that we used
to backup desktops. We're mostly in the research computing business, so
we "only" had around 100 desktops and laptops we backed up. That said,
the overhead of checking to see why that system failed its backups was
high - in many cases the desktop would be powered off, or the user would
have taken the laptop home.

There are two ways about this. One is to implement CDP for files: 
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/continuous-data-protection/

The other way is to allow users to backup to TSM from their workstation, but 
make them responsible for it. Just give them an node account, and tell them to 
use it, but do not schedule the backups. Of course, there is no guarantee that 
a user has a recent backup of his files when he needs to restore, but at least 
you've provided him with a way of protecting himself.

As for not having any data on the workstation, that is in some circumstances 
close to impossible, for example for laptop/mobile users. Having an irregular 
backup is better than no backup at all, and having a user be aware of his role 
in protecting his and the company's data is always a good thing.

I actually did bring up using CDP as a solution at the time, but it
ended up coming down to a matter of costs and staffing - if research
computing offered it as a solution, we'd have to pay for it and support
it using our own resources. We decided that desktop support simply
wasn't one of our core competencies (mass storage/archiving,
high-performance computing, etc.), and left the matter with our desktop
folks to solve.

We also did briefly consider allowing our end users to be responsible
for backups but I think that would be a recipe for them never happening.
In academia, CYA is key. :)

-- Skylar Thompson (skylar2 AT u.washington DOT edu)
-- Genome Sciences Department, System Administrator
-- Foege Building S046, (206)-685-7354
-- University of Washington School of Medicine