Dr. Kirby,
We have used amanda for backup of about 65 workstations and servers for going
on five years now here at corporate research for Goodyear. Currently, we
backup about 700GB.
> 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
> >
---
Wayne Richards Phone: 330 796-4462
Goodyear Tech Center Fax: 330 796-3947
Department 431A e-mail: wrichards AT goodyear DOT com
PO Box 3531
Akron, OH 44309-3531
And one for the lawyers:
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