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Microsoft Releases Public Beta of Data Protection

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the safety-first dept.

Torrey Clark writes "Microsoft has released the public beta of its disk-to-disk backup product, Data Protection Manager. The product is designed to make backups easier than simply backing up to tape. Disk-to-disk backup completes images in significantly less time, meaning much less downtime for systems during backups."

10 of 262 comments (clear)

  1. downtime during backup? by R.D.Olivaw · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Don't know about the rest of the world but we don't have to take systems down to backup them here.

    1. Re:downtime during backup? by TummyX · · Score: 3, Insightful

      xfs_freeze might make sure that the fs level of the files is fine but what happens if it occurs at a time when an application is doing something vital. I doubt all applications on linux are written to be xfs_freeze aware.

    2. Re:downtime during backup? by TummyX · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That doesn't Change anything.

      How do you know your backup was made at a point where the file data is stable frOm an apps point of view? Either the app has to be made freeze aware or the app has to be closed.

      The snapshot volume you mentioned helps to keep the sever running but any data you backup would be like data copied from a drive from a machine that was powered off without shutting down. You never know just what wasn't in a stable state! Maybe apps need to be written to be backup aware.

  2. Am I missing something? by (trb001) · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Or is this just RAID-1 backup without the read performance boost?

    --trb

  3. Re:Expiring Backup Software? by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 4, Insightful
    That is, in my opinion, extremely dangerous.
    It is a public beta, for evaluation. You're supposed to use this alongside your existing backup mechanism, in a 'sandbox' environment, or in a carefully monitored environment, where you should expect and prepare for issues with this product

    Any sysadmin using expiring public beta software for production backups, shouldn't be a sysadmin in the first place. Don't blame Microsoft for this.
    --
    If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  4. Re:What ever happened to easy backups? by maxwell+demon · · Score: 4, Insightful
    What's wrong with:

    dd if=/dev/hdb1 of=/mnt/hdh1/path/to/desired/backup/image/here.iso


    Depends. It won't work if /dev/hdb1 is your largest file system. And of course you don't want to do that while /dev/hdb1 is in use, since you otherwise risk inconsistent data structures.
    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  5. Re:Expiring Backup Software? by smkndrkn · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We're also aware that system administrators often commit horrible -- albeit accidental -- decisions in a pinch.

    Only poor ones. As as systems administrator I would never use a beta like this to backup ANY data that was important.

    You really have bigger problems with budget/manager/etc if you don't have a better backup product to use.

    --
    ======== In the future, everything will be artificial. ========
  6. Re:RAID by PinkX · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And how is your RAID going to help you when your data loss is due to an (un)intentionall deletion, and not some kind of hardware failure?

    --
    Articulos para gente geek: Poleras, linux, libros y mas
  7. Re:I dont understand. by Colin+Smith · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Binaries, word docs, text, database files all compress well on to tape. 1.3TB is about the average of what we get onto the cartridges. RDBMS files and engineering data sets in particular compress to far higher densities, 5TB -> 10TB per cartridge. The drive does the compression so it doesn't impact the client systems too badly.

    You can have an external SAIT drive for around £2500. Ours are in big (Hundreds of TB) libraries and cost a bit more. They are actually physically a lot smaller than they used to be.

    The point is that hard disk backups are for small networks. People who say tape is dead, back up to hard disk RAID arrays are people who back up small systems or sites.

    --
    Deleted
  8. Linux comes with backup software? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Hi!

    You all seem to bash MS again... .. but tell me, where can I find an useable Backup program from my SuSE 9.2 Professional? Windows 2000 Professional as well as Windows XP Professional both have a good schedulable backup program (included free as it should). But there is nothing on SuSE. (Ok, there is tar, but that definitely does not count! And then there is that on system backup in the YaST, but even that doesn't come close to what a backup program should be like - in order to be useable.) So, in terms of backup software, MS seems to be way ahead of SuSE, which is about the best regarded distro nowadays...