AMANDA Survey Results - 6 of 6

In April 2003, readers of the amanda-user mailing list were asked
fill out and submit a survey form describing their use of the
amanda backup system.  Seventy two (72) responses were received.

What follows is a summarization of the responses describing the
various methods to backup 'non-unix' clients, mostly PC's running
versions of Windows.

=== PC's Backed Up Using SAMBA Connections to AMANDA Clients ===

A total of 22 survey respondents (of 72) report
they use amanda and samba to backup PC clients.

   10 have  1 PC client
   10 have  2 - 5  PC clients
    1 has  15 PC clients
    1 has  40 PC clients


[Surveyor's Note]  From these results it seems to me that amanda/samba
is seldom a first choice for backing up PC's.  Instead it seems to be
used when a site has an existing amanda installation and would like
to implement some form of PC backup.


The respondents mentioned the following Operating Systems
were being run on the PC clients.  The number is the number
of mentions, not number of PC's.

   1   Windows 95              2   Windows 2000 Server
   1   Windows 98              5   Windows XP
   3   Windows NT              1   Windows XP Pro
   2   Windows NT 4            1   Snap Server
   9   Windows 2000


[Surveyor's Note]  Of interest to users running Lotus Domino:
One respondent reported using "The Open File Manager"
from http://www.stbernard.com to create online backups of
their Lotus Domino database files which then could be
backed up to their amanda host using samba.


=== PC's Backed Up Using Cygwin/AMANDA Client Software ===

A total of 4 survey respondents (of 72) report
they use a cygwin/amanda client to backup PC clients.

   2 have  1 PC client
   1 has   3 PC clients
   1 has  15 PC clients

The only PC operating systems mentioned were
Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 Server.


=== PC's Backed Up by AMANDA Using Other Techniques ===

A variety of techniques, other than samba or cygwin,
were described by respondents to backup PC's

1. Two respondents installed an NFS server on Windows 2000
   and then NFS mounted the PC disks on the amanda host
   and backed them up as local file systems.

2. Similarly, two respondents mounted PC shares of Windows 95,
   Windows NT, and Windows 2000 on the amanda host using 'smbmount'
   and backed them up as local 'smbfs' file systems.

3. Several respondents reported they first backed up their PC's
   (Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2000 Server)
   to disk files on the PC's and then backed that file up using
   amanda; presumably using samba or some file transfer technique.
   One mentioned that the backup stream was sent directly to a
   Linux host and backed up there as a local file.

   The backup programs the respondents mentioned included:
       'Windows backup program'
       'BackupPC', a Linux opensource program
       'Win2000 Backup Tool'
       'Backup Exec'

4. One respondent noted their firewall was a PC running linux.
   That system was mirrored using rsync and the mirror was backed up.


=== Other Backup Techniques Mentioned ===

Five respondents described backing up systems using "non-traditional"
methods.  These methods were used to backup systems running either
MacOS or Windows.  They included:


1. MacOS 9, mounted (NFS?) onto a Linux host and backing up the mounts as
   local filesystems.

2. Backing up 37 MacOS 8 and MacOS 9 systems using the program Retrospect.
   The output of Retrospect was transferred to a Linux host using ftp and
   preserved with amanda.

3. Build a native amanda client on MacOS X and use hfstar instead of gnutar.

4. Backup 6 Windows XP hosts using a native windows amanda client.

5. Backup 12 Windows 2000 Server hosts using a native windows amanda client.
   This respondent also noted their intention to switch to a cygwin/amanda
   client in the near future.
AMANDA Survey Results - 6 of 6 - Non UNIX Clients
