We have some very small (<100GB of data) remote sites. They are backed up
using a variety of methods ranging from not at all, to NT Backup, to local
Legato on a small tape changer.
We would like to standardize methods and also reduce the administration
overhead for backups at these remote sites.
Suggestions have included
        1. standardizing on local Legato install (major drawback is need for
local administration of tapes, etc. plus the need to purchase a few more
licenses)
        2. using an off-site (outsourced) backup solution such as LiveVault
(major drawback is cost)
        3. using remote replication to disk at one of our "major" sites and
backing up that disk using our regular methods (major drawback is necessity
of purchasing and maintaining replication software such as Double-Take)
        4. backing up over our WAN using Legato from one of the "major"
sites (major drawback is potential network bandwidth issue)

Option 1 requires remote monitoring of the Legato backups plus an on-site
(non-IS) person willing to change tapes under the direction of a remote IS
person). It would also necessitate purchasing some Legato licenses.
Options 3 and 4 would necessitate purchasing disk space to replicate the
data.
Options 2, 3 and 4 would likely necessitate purchasing more network
bandwidth -- 4 more than 2 or 3 since they do byte level incrementals.
Are there any other issues with option 4? Does this require any sort of
special license from Legato? We have plenty of server and client licenses to
handle this option - as long as no other special license is needed.

Has anyone else gone through this sort of exercise? What did you decide and
why?

Thanks for any input.

Cyndi
---
Cyndi Smith
Senior System Support Engineer - Unix
Aspen Technology, Houston, TX

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