There was some discussion on X front-end for backups on which I like to
expand. The OSF/1 V3.2 Networker is good news in a way but I'm worried
about a couple of things. When I evaluated the full version of DEC-NSR on
our Alpha, I liked it but decided not to buy the product for two reasons:
1) It uses it's own proprietary tape format and didn't support open
standard tape formats like cpio, tar and dump. Another package called
BudTools does and we've almost decided to buy it on this basis since we
exchange tapes with other groups. BudTools is very similar to DEC-NSR.
2) We wanted some of our users to use the backup/restore facility to
manage their own files at will. I couldn't configure DEC-NSR to allow
normal users to do this without giving them the same privilege as root. I
just want users to access files on the system using their own login
privileges. Please correct me if I'm wrong - there may be a way to do
this with DEC-NSR. The reason we need to do this is they (geological
remote sensing group) deal with very large data files so the disks can
quickly fill up. They want to quickly and easily transfer files using a
user-friendly interface. They also need to manage their files and keep a
history of what's happened on-line. From my observations BudTools employs
a better approach which uses much less disk space to keep records of all
the tape transactions.
Now the bad news about BudTools. It's not supported on OSF/1. So if we
buy it, it will have to be installed on one of our Suns and the users have
to run it across the network. It will go well with our Exabyte 10i
stacker.
So, my question is will the DEC OSF/1 version 3.2 of NetWorker
SingleServer have the same "limitations" outlined above?
--
Jack N. Churchill | Jack.Churchill_at_dem.csiro.au
CSIRO Division of Exploration and Mining | http://www.csiro.au
PO Box 136 North Ryde NSW 2113 | Phone: +61 2 887 8884
Australia | Fax: +61 2 887 8921
Received on Wed Feb 08 1995 - 06:47:35 NZDT