While I have been a bit quiet lately, I have been working on two new projects one is a BackupPC virtual appliance. An agentless backup and recovery system that also de-duplicates. There is a lot of discussion around technologies like Data Domain, Diligent, EMC/Avamar, and Asigra, this virtual appliance provides similar functionality for FREE. I am also working on a web based UI for this appliance to simplify setup and sync integration for replication.

Setup of the BackupPC virtual appliance is quite simple.

1. Start the BackupPC Virtual Appliance
2. The virtual appliance is setup to use bridged networking, it should receive a dhcp address on your network
3. Log into the BackupPC virtual appliance
   • Username: root
   • Password: backuppc
4. Identify network IP address
   • ifconfig -a
5. Open you desktop browser and point it to http://ip_address/cgi-bin/BackupPC_Admin
   • Username: admin
   • Password: password
6. Create a user “backuppc” on the windows hosts that you want to backup. Backups are performed via SMB so the “backuppc” user should have read access to the C$, etc… shares.
   • Note: Don’t forget to set the users password
7. vi /b2d_target/conf/config.pl
   • You will need to modify 3 variables in this file
     • $Conf{SmbShareName} = ‘C$’;
       • These are the shares that you want to backup
     • $Conf{SmbShareUserName} = ‘backuppc’;
     • $Conf{SmbSharePasswd} = ‘backuppc’;
       • The SmbShareUserName and SmbSharePasswd should match the username and password that you created on your windows host.
8. Add hosts to backup.
   • vi /b2d_target/conf/hosts
     • Follow the syntax in the file – the use of IP addresses is OK
9. Reload the backup configuration file from the web ui
   • Select “Admin Options” and “Reload Config”
10. You are now ready to start a backup

For detailed usage documentation see: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/

NOTE: [THIS IS OPTIONAL]

Finally the virtual machine is configured with a 300GB backup target disk (/dev/hdb2). This is Hard Disk 2 (IDE 0:1), if you need more space you should follow the following procedure:

1. Shutdown the virtual machine
2. Remove Hard Disk 2 and add a new larger virtual disk – See vmware docs for more detail
3. Login as root
4. /etc/init.d/backuppc stop
5. mkfs -t ext3 /dev/hdb1
6. mount -a
   • verify that the new device is mounted on /b2d_target
     • df -k
7. /etc/init.d/backuppc start

Please download and try this virtual machine, and let me know if you find any issues with the documentation. Enjoy!

[tags]virtual appliance backup recovery backuppc linux vmware windows agentless[/tags]

In the event that you have not noticed (BTW – the assumption here is that you read my blog in braille), I was tired of the old look and feel so I gave the page a facelift. Hope you enjoy.

The other day I was asked to comment on a few question with regard to the future of tape technology.  I thought the questions were good one so I though I would post my unedited responses.

Question:

Many analysts and storage observers have said that tape is becoming obsolete, yet I have spoken to Sun Microsystems and IBM and they both say that using tape for storage is fundamental to their business strategy and that they are experiencing growth in this area.

What are your thoughts about tape?s evolving role in storage and do you think for the longer term tape will survive and still be relevant to storage over the next year, five years or even a decade. What trends are you seeing in tape?s use?

Response:

First thought is 5 or 10 years is a lifetime in technology. While today I believe tape is still and integral part of most IT infrastructures the management, consumables and vaulting costs are prompting many organizations to investigate technologies with the hope of reducing their dependency on traditional tape technology and improving SLAs. Technologies such as virtual tape, data de-duplication and emerging technologies such as removable disk cartridges (e.g. – http://www.prostorsystems.com/products.php) and holographic storage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_storage) will change the way we approach backup and recovery.

Obviously IBM and Sun Microsystems (post STK acquisition) have thriving tape businesses that are fundamental to their business model and I would expect them to continue promote and evangelize the value of tape. As a technologist I think that it would be na?ve to assume that in the next 5 to 10 years there will not be game changing technologies that arise that will affect the need for traditional tape.

Question:

Do you use tape for storage? If so can you describe the response customers are giving you to its use? Is your business growing in this area, or is it dwindling?

Response:

Me do use a fair amount of tape but the amount of tape technology is declining due to the deployment of alternative technologies such as Snapshots, Virtual Tape, Content Addressable Storage, data de-duplication and enterprise wide archiving strategies. Our backup and recovery business is growing but the platform is no longer tape only.

Question:

What are the virtues of using tape? I understand that the popularity of virtual tape libraries are on the rise, but in general is tape a better form of storage that disk? What are tape?s advantages and what are the disadvantages?

Response:

This is like debating religion. Obviously today the biggest benefits of tape are portability, density and cost. The biggest drawback is management. Format incompatibility, possible reliability issues for long term retention, vaulting costs, the debate of iron vs. speed, etc?.

Question:

If you have any other thoughts on the use of Tape that my questions don?t address, (such as cost) etc., please feel free to give me your insights.

Response:

Often an overlooked component of tape infrastructure is the vaulting cost. The use of a solid archiving strategy and the use of emerging technologies such as data de-duplication will not only simplify management and improve SLAs but can also reduce Op-Ex dramatically.

Lastly I believe that there are some compelling events that prompt us to investigate technologies that augment the use of tape. These technologies will absolutely erode some of the tape market share. The cheese will move over the next 5 to 10 years, maybe the tape vendors will move it or maybe it will be a new innovator, the market players will react and those who do not will loose market share and may potentially fizzle out.

For more detail on the effects of archiving on the use of backup and recovery see: http://www.gotitsolutions.org/2006/08/22/the-simple-value-of-archiving.html

I am a fairly avid Blackberry user and the Got IT Solutions blog is hard to read on a mobile device so I have setup http://mobile.gotitsolutions.org to accommodate mobile users who are as interested in the Got IT Solutions content as I am .