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Ask Slashdot: Open Source Back-Up Tool For Business?

Posted by timothy on from the dd-and-a-pocketknife dept.

New submitter xerkot writes: I am looking for a tool to make backups of PCs in a big company. We want to replace the one that we are using at this moment for this new one. The tool will be used to do backups of PCs (mainly Windows, and a few Linux), and we want to manage these backups centrally from a console, being able to automatize the backup process. The servers of the company are backed up with another tool, so they are out of scope. In the company we are being encouraged more and more to use open source software, so I would like to ask you, what are best open source tools to do backups of PCs? Are they mature enough for a big company?

3 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Never mix business and ideology by martiniturbide · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Open Source is not only an ideology, it is a tool to reduce the risk of dependencies on a single vendor. I found that his question is very valid if he wants to reduce vendor risk.

  2. OwnCloud, and back up that server by cerberusss · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I worked at a scientific institute, and they simply installed OwnCloud everywhere. It's got a client for most platforms, syncs to a server, and allows you to back up the server in the usual fashion.

    It worked so well, that when I started doing consulting (at the client site), I got my own VPS with Debian, and installed OwnCloud server on that. Then installed the client on my private laptop and the laptop that I got from the client. Works beautifully, because communication is over HTTPS. Company firewalls don't block that. I tried other things like BitTorrent Sync, but these use special ports.

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    8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
  3. Don't back up end user PC's at all. by enjar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Set up home drives on file servers and back those up. Teach users that those are the only locations that are backed up. Set up the PCs to use that as the default home location. You can do this on Windows and Linux just fine. Invest in the server -- redundant power supplies, RAID arrays, failover, etc. You could even look at various open source NAS devices, or whatever works for your environment.

    Why?

    Backing up user PCs doesn't scale well and becomes a thankless task for some poor employee who has to keep up with broken backup clients. It's far easier to scale when you only have to keep up with the file servers. You have some number of clients saving to each server, but that's that number of backup clients you don't need to deal with. This frees up IT staff for other, more useful tasks.

    It also allows you to replace end-user PCs with a simple re-image rather than trying to recover or fix anything. End-user calls and says their PC is going whacko, you pull a spare off the shelf and lay down a fresh install. Show up, take the malfunctioning equipment away and diagnose it on your time, while they get back to work. Since all the files are on the server they can just get back to it rather than waiting on you to try and fix whatever might be going wrong.