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Amanda 2.5 Released

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the better-ways-to-stash-your-goods dept.

Anonymous Coward writes to tell us that a new release of the popular open source backup tool Amanda is now available fixing many of the limitations of previous versions. From the release: "Overall the focus of the release is on security of the backup process & backed up data, scalability of the backup process and ease of installation & configuration of Amanda."

4 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. How does it compare to Bacula? by leereyno · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How does this new version compare to Bacula (http://www.bacula.org/)?

    The thing I like about Bacula is that it will allow you to spread a backup job accross multiple tapes, supports backups to disk, has its own scheduling system, and has a native windows client. From what I understand Amanda uses tar and relies upon NFS, SMB, or other network filesystem protocols to work. Bacula on the other hand has a true client/server architecture with a native client running on all of the systems it supports. It also makes use of MySQL to keep track of backup jobs. This made it very easy for me to create a web interface for it (http://raobackup.eas.asu.edu/

    If Amanda has been improved to be competitive with Bacula in some of these areas then I'll definitely have to investigate it.

    Lee

    --
    Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
    1. Re:How does it compare to Bacula? by Noksagt · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This version of amanda supports tape spanning. Many used to say use amanda for the scheduler or bacula for the tape spanning. Since amanda spans, this no longer holds.

      Amanda has always allowed backups to a holding disk & the scheduler has been fantasitc. There isn't a native windows client, but the windows client runs fine under cygwin, or one can backup SMB shares.

      Amanda does rely on tar (which is, IMHO, a good thing), but that tar can be different on each client (so that one can backup resource forks on OS X, for example).

      Amanda doesn't rely on NFS or SMB, but can use them. There are excellent web interfaces through, for example, webmin.

  2. I Tried It Once... by Illbay · · Score: 5, Interesting
    ...but had a tough time with the (at least at that time) limited hardware support. While I'm sure they've probably worked that out (at least to a better degree than before), my search for alternatives back then turned up rdiff-backup.

    Not only has it always been versatile as far as the hardware it uses--for my SOHO server, an external USB Harddrive is the ticket, one that I can just snatch and carry with me if natural disaster threatens, e.g.--but the METHOD of backup is superior to anything I've personally ever encountered.

    Backup AND restore are both a breeze.

    I'm sure that AMANDA is more appropriate for many (read "more servers") usage, but I've found rdiff-backup to be perfect for someone like me, with only a single server to worry about (althought that single server contains all my family's business and personal files--so to us, it's not such a trivial thing).

    --
    Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
  3. Bacula doesn't have Amanda's scheduling. by argent · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For me, the lack of automatic backup scheduling in other packages is a complete deal-breaker. Amanda, I just tell it how many full backups I want over what period, and it makes it happen. There's no "full backup this friday" crap. You don't have enough tape? It defers the backups it can, and lets you know you need to get more... it's painless.

    For a site with growing storage there's no alternative to Amanda.