Automate data backup with open-source tools

Dominant among open-source data protection software are Amanda (short for Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver) and Bacula, which are two software packages designed for backing up Windows, Solaris, Linux and Mac OS X client servers, laptops and desktops.

Amanda has been used by businesses since 1991, when it was developed at the University of Maryland. Listed as a project on SourceForge.net in 1999, Amanda consists of two parts: a backup client that runs on the server attached to the tape- or disk-based backup system and backup servers that run on machines that need to be backed up. The client software connects to the servers and requests data to be backed up, then stores the data on tape or disk drives attached to the backup machine.

After a few hours of hair pulling and several angry phone calls, I suggested I might have a way of recovering the lost files. Jon LaBadie President, JG Computing

While Amanda is focused on Web-based applications deployed on the LAMP stack, it's often used to back up other network resources.

Jon LaBadie, president of JG Computing in Reston, VA, says, "I got started with Amanda around 1998 contracting to a Federal site," says LaBadie. "The site was using EMC's Legato NetWorker for backing up their Solaris servers. " Since the site experienced problems with NetWorker, LaBadie downloaded and demoed Amanda, and when the site upgraded to a new Legato license, he continued doing daily backups in stealth mode with Amanda.

"About two months later, a critical set of files were lost," says LaBadie. "The NetWorker backups for some reason were insufficient to recover them, and on the new Solaris server, they weren't backed up. After a few hours of hair pulling and several angry phone calls, I suggested I might have a way of recovering the lost files -- with Amanda. I spent about five minutes recovering the files. As you can imagine, Amanda found favor at that site. It was run in parallel with Legato for about a year and as of three years ago was still in use in that department."

Amanda can do full and incremental backups, as well as partial full backups. It supports encryption both in flight and at rest and integrates the native dump and tar utilities, so jobs executed on one system can be recovered on another. In addition, Amanda includes a scheduler that administrators can use to queue up backup jobs.

In 2005, a company called Zmanda was founded by Chander Kant. Zmanda takes the open-source Amanda and commercializes its distribution and offers support subscriptions for it. The company has also expanded its support for Amanda with Zmanda Recovery Manager for MySQL, which provides online backup for MySQL database environments. Like Amanda, Zmanda offers tape, disk and cloud computing backup support through Amazon's S3 service.

Peter Eisch, director of managed services for VisionShare Inc. in Minneapolis has used Amanda previously, but now relies on Bacula for backing up 44 systems to disk each night.

"Of the people in our company, we'd all used several different systems in previous jobs," says Eisch. "Even with this experience, none of us wanted to be the champion of any of those systems -- we had no warm fuzzies with Veritas, Legato, NTBackup and so forth. With that in mind, we liked having the source code for the client-side software. Some systems we back up aren't supported by the common vendors -- different flavors of NetBSD on different platforms. Bacula compiles and runs just fine on all of these."

Bacula was originally written in 2000 and first released in 2002. Like Amanda, it backs up Windows, Linux, Unix and Mac OS X servers, desktops and laptops. In addition, it also supports MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite open-source databases.

There are other open-source backup packages available. Some like BackupPC, which can be downloaded from SourceForge.net, and DeltaCopy focus on backing up Windows, Linux and Mac OS X laptops and desktops. Others such as the rsync utility, which is included in Linux distributions, focus on synchronizing data from one disk to another or one location to another.

Deni Connor is principal analyst with Storage Strategies NOW in Austin, TX.

Rate this Tip To rate tips, you must be a member of SearchDataBackup.com. Register now to start rating these tips. Log in if you are already a member. Digg This!     StumbleUpon     Del.icio.us    RELATED CONTENT Backup and recovery Ten things you should ask a vendor before buying a tape library Encryption's impact on network backup can be high Bare-metal backup and restore options Backup and recovery basics: Testing your backups Data protection for financial organizations The pros and cons of file-level vs. block-level data deduplication Five signs you need to replace your data backup software Data backup options for remote sites The differences between block-based and file-based data backup How to implement VMware Site Recovery Manager Data storage backup tools Backups (not so) Anonymous Ten things you should ask a vendor before buying a tape library Encryption's impact on network backup can be high Storage Decisions: Data backup tests crucial but challenging Bare-metal backup and restore options Backup and recovery basics: Testing your backups Data protection for financial organizations Storage vendors push data protection at VMworld The pros and cons of file-level vs. block-level data deduplication Tape drive encryption options Remote data protection Storage admins grapple with virtual data protection at VMworld EMC integrates Replication Manager with VMFS Data backup options for remote sites IBM quickly integrates FilesX's CDP into Tivoli Storage Manager EMC brings Mozy online backup to Best Buy Is online data backup right for your business? Demystifying VMware data protection: VMware data replication methods University's bookstores streamline backup management School district gives data dedupe mixed grades EMC unveils data deduplication, spin-down for VTLs RELATED RESOURCES 2020software.com, trial software downloads for accounting software, ERP software, CRM software and business software systems Search Bitpipe.com for the latest white papers and business webcasts Whatis.com, the online computer dictionary DISCLAIMER: Our Tips Exchange is a forum for you to share technical advice and expertise with your peers and to learn from other enterprise IT professionals. TechTarget provides the infrastructure to facilitate this sharing of information. However, we cannot guarantee the accuracy or validity of the material submitted. You agree that your use of the Ask The Expert services and your reliance on any questions, answers, information or other materials received through this Web site is at your own risk.