Alan Brown wrote:
> On Thu, 12 Jun 2008, Chris Hoogendyk wrote:
>   
>> Another department I work for has been unable to scrape up any money for
>> the backup system even though I've been pushing them and submitting
>> proposals for 2 years.
>>     
>
> Produce a "Cost of Not Implementing" report. Make it clear that you will
> not be responsible for data losses not attributable to backup hardware
> failure.
>   

been there. done that.

We convinced the other department to invest in a better backup system 
after a serious building wide power glitch (an emergency generator fired 
220 down all the 110 lines in the building) that destroyed a bunch of 
expensive research equipment. The SmartUPSes on our servers tripped an 
internal breaker that disconnected the outside power so none of our 
servers were damaged. But the possibility, the expense of replacing 
research equipment (paid for in this case by the contractor's insurance 
company), and the specter of losing data from years of research 
convinced them to take action. They got an AIT5 tape library, and we 
implemented a real backup server.

>> I can't run nightly backups, because it takes
>> several days to get everything done using the existing DDS/3 drives, and
>> even then, I have a fair number of partitions that run off the ends of
>> tapes
>>     
>
> That won't happen with Bacula.
>   

Sure it does. The issue is not a software issue. It is a combination of 
hardware and human issues. The hardware won't hold everything that needs 
to be backed up, and sometimes users fill their partitions with 
uncompressable stuff so that something that normally fits on a tape 
doesn't. Then the person who is responsible for changing tapes doesn't 
(these are single DDS/3 drives per server scattered about the 
department). So, that's what I would call running off the end of the 
tape. If another tape had been supplied, the remainder of the data would 
have been backed up. If they had more up-to-date hardware it wouldn't 
happen.

>> What's the cost of data loss? I'm expecting them to learn that
>> someday. When the department head, or some influential department
>> member, loses an important document or data file that happened to be off
>> the end of a tape, or that we didn't back up because it wasn't in the
>> time window, then maybe the money will appear and I will be able to do
>> proper backups for them.
>>     
>
> More likely, you will be blamed for their lack of planning, on the basis
> that you are responsible for backups.
>
> I suggest you cover yourself. Academia can be quite nasty when things go
> wrong, even when it's the academic's fault.
>
> We just spent $3200 recovering a 160Gb disk one senior professor insisted
> didn't need backing up. When it died, she insisted she needed it recovered
> and took it to the department head - end result was that the costs came
> out of OUR budget, not hers - even though the department head eventually
> agreed it was not our fault.
>   

ha! We don't have a budget! Anything we get comes out of their funds 
through begging.


>> In the meantime, I have plenty of proposals and requests to point to if
>> anyone ever complains that their data is not being backed up.
>>     
>
> That often won't help.

I'm not worried. I know that some departments like to engage in finger 
pointing. The departments I work for are intelligent and well meaning. 
It's just that one of them has no money. They are glad that we are able 
to scrape together hand-me-down equipment from other departments for 
some things. Unfortunately, I haven't found anyone handing down tape 
libraries.


---------------

Chris Hoogendyk

-
   O__  ---- Systems Administrator
  c/ /'_ --- Biology & Geology Departments
 (*) \(*) -- 140 Morrill Science Center
~~~~~~~~~~ - University of Massachusetts, Amherst 

<hoogendyk AT bio.umass DOT edu>

--------------- 

Erdös 4



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