Amanda-Users

RE: Who uses amanda?

2003-03-12 13:26:30
Subject: RE: Who uses amanda?
From: "Martinez, Michael - CSREES/ISTM" <MMARTINEZ AT intranet.reeusda DOT gov>
To: "'gene_heskett AT iolinc DOT net'" <gene_heskett AT iolinc DOT net>, "Dr. David Kirkby" <davek AT medphys.ucl.ac DOT uk>, Amanda Users <amanda-users AT amanda DOT org>
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 11:36:02 -0500
We use amanda at the CSREES agency of U.S. Dept of Agriculture. We use it on
our Linux and unix servers. We back up approximately 30 Gigs of data with
it.

Michael Martinez
CSREES/ISTM/USDA



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gene Heskett [mailto:gene_heskett AT iolinc DOT net] 
> Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2003 9:34 AM
> To: Dr. David Kirkby; Amanda Users
> Subject: Re: Who uses amanda?
> 
> 
> On Wed March 12 2003 06:59, Dr. David Kirkby wrote:
> >Can anyone tell me if they use amanda and are a large commercial  
> >company (> 250 employees), a hospital or a university and if so  how 
> >much it's used (whole institution, small department, single  server 
> >etc). How many Gb do you back up (don't answer that if you  feel its 
> >confidential, or you don't know).
> >
> >I don't work in computer support but are aware there is a talk of  
> >buying a Veritas backup package at academic discount (around 800  UK 
> >pounds or $1300). I wanted to know if amanda would be a 
> viable  option. 
> >I guess there are going to be issues bought up about  support, 
> >stability, the importance of backups etc. I'd like to  know of big 
> >organistations using the software and if they have  compared it to 
> >Veritas.
> 
> You obviously have, in such a situation, a need for a library, and 
> one with multimegabyte a second drives in it.  This will be far 
> more important in terms of getting the backups done in a timely 
> manner in the wee hours than the software you use to accomplish 
> that.
> 
> Also far more costly than the software even if it was arkeia or 
> veritas.
> 
> But since amanda is a client/server setup, and the client can be 
> told to do the compression, the next consideration would be the 
> occupied network bandwidth while the backup is running.  Using 
> client compression can make night and day differences in the 
> network loading and its general useability while the backup is in 
> progress.  You'll need at least 100baseT if its going to get well 
> into the 10's of gigabytes per session.
> 
> IMO amanda is a viable option, here's why:
> 
> Support: I'd be willing to bet you'll get help here at least as fast 
> as you'll get it from veritas, we're (some of us) awake all around 
> the world on a 24/7/365 basis.  Veritas keep office hours.
> 
> Stability: I've been running the latest snapshots, and have yet to 
> feel the need to come back to this list and report that 
> snapshot-version-date so-and-so was busted for my little 2 machine 
> home system.
> 
> And we have been told that the United States Dept. of Agriculture 
> has been using amanda for quite some time, and I believe that would 
> qualify as a large organization.  However, I'd expect that, except 
> for the Washington DC offices, is a distributed in little 
> autonomous pieces setup.
> 
> >I looked at using amanda once for my home computer (Sun Ultra 80,  
> >about 200 Gb of disk space over 4/5 drives, 40 Gb tape drive),  but 
> >decided that for such a small system, a couple of unix shell 
>  scripts 
> >run by cron was all I needed, so never bothered using  
> amanda. I know 
> >shell scripts are currently used here but we  intend 
> expanding the disk 
> >space by quite a lot.
> >
> >So basically:
> >a) I know little about amanda
> 
> We were all there once :)
> 
> >b) Have no intention of using it myself for my home computer, but  
> >wonder if its a variable option in a university department (~100  
> >staff).
> 
> Why not?  For a home system, its a piece of cake.  I have a 4 tape 
> magazine drive, so I don't have the daily chore of remembering to 
> change the tapes.  Amcheck emails me to remind me it couldn't find 
> the next tape it needs, half a day before its actually needed, so 
> the responsibility of seeing to it the proper tapes are loaded is 
> mine.  Not too bad on an every 4th day schedule.  Other than that, 
> once up and running, that is the sum total of human intervention 
> required to run amanda.  If I had a 30 tape library, I could close 
> the door and lock it, but then I do a 5 day cycle to get everything 
> in a full, and have 28 tapes in the pool, so I have over 4 full 
> fulls on hand at any one time.  Paranoid maybe...
> 
> Besides, doing it on your home system will automaticly make you an 
> expert when the university deploys it.
> 
> >
> >Dr. David Kirkby PhD,
> >Senior Research Fellow,
> >Department of Medical Physics,
> >University College London,
> >11-20 Capper St, London, WC1E 6JA.
> >Tel: 020 7679 6408 Fax: 020 7679 6269
> >Internal telephone: ext 46408
> >e-mail davek AT medphys.ucl.ac DOT uk
> >Web page: http://www.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/~davek
> 
> -- 
> Cheers, Gene
> AMD K6-III@500mhz 320M
> Athlon1600XP@1400mhz  512M
> 99.24% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
> 

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