Backup software usually provides some form of management of files, tapes, and autochangers. Retrieval of files is not automatic (as in true HSM). These are designed to allow you to recover from disk or file system failures, and to recover files accidentally (or maliciously) deleted or corrupted. Some work in conjunction with HSM systems, which are often vulnerable to the latter class of problems.
I've concentrated here on backup software that supports various autochangers, as this is of more interest to people in this group than standalone software for backing up one hard disk onto one tape.
I don't think any of the PC operating systems come with tape support built in, so you have to have some 3rd party software to work with tape. This short list is primarily oriented toward PC servers. It's partly derived from _PC Magazine_, March 29, 1994, pp. 227-272.
Note that there has been an ongoing discussion of the pitfalls of Windows 95 and third-party backup software; many in particular are having trouble with long file names.
Arcada Software - Storage Exec. (NT) Avail (NT) Cheyenne Software - ArcServe (Netware) Conner Storage Systems - Backup Exec (Netware) Emerald Systems - Xpress Librarian Fortunet - NSure NLM/AllNet Legato - NetWorker (Netware) Mountain Network Solutions - FileSafe NovaStor (Netware) Palindrome - Network Archivist (Netware, OS/2, Windows) Palindrome -Backup Director Performance Technology - PowerSave (Netware) Systems Enhancement - Total Network Recall
Arcada is at 800/327-2232 and at www.arcada.com.
{Under Construction}(SHMO)
Some people claim "Unix tape support is an oxymoron," so there's a big market in outdoing tar, dump, dd and cpio.
APUnix - FarTool
Cheyenne - ArcServe (see under PCs, above)
Dallastone - D-Tools
Delta MicroSystems (PDC) - BudTool
Epoch Systems - Enterprise Backup
IBM - ADSM (Adstar Distributed Storage Manager)
Hewlett Packard - OmniBack II
Legato - Networker
Network Imaging Systems
Open Vision - AXXion Netbackup 2.0 Software www.ov.com
Software Moguls - SM-arch
Spectra Logic - Alexandria
Workstation Solutions
{Under Construction}(SHMO)
Spectra Logic makes 4mm & 8mm autochangers, but this software supports
other autochangers as well. Has a nice feature that it claims to be
capable of backing up live Oracle, Informix and Sybase databases.
email alexandria@spectra.wali.com. (rdv,95/2/14) On the web at
www.spectralogic.com
Runs on everything from OS/2, AIX and OS/400 to VSE/ESA, MVS and VM
providing backups for virtually everything you can think of in PCs and
workstations. (800)IBM-3333 or anonymous ftp to index.storsys.ibm.com.
(rdv,95/2/14) www.storage.ibm.com
or www.storage.ibm.com.
Backup software. See www.legato.com. Runs on a wide variety of
platforms and supports a bunch of types of autochangers.
Legato Systems, Inc. 3145 Porter Drive Palo Alto, CA 94304 Phone: 415-812-6000 Fax Number: 415-812-6032 Fax-on-demand: 415-812-6156
PDC Engineering 111 Lindbergh Avenue Suite C Livermore, CA 94550 USA (510) 449-6881 FAX (510) 449-6885
See www.pdc.com.
See www.worksta.com. Runs on a variety of Unix platforms, and
supports a reasonably broad range (20GB-5TB) of autochangers and tape
systems (4mm, 8mm, DLT, VHS). (rdv, 96/7/8)
Subscribe to amanda-hackers-request@cs.umd.edu and
amanda-users-request@cs.umd.edu for some time. The "current"
distibution of Amanda seems to be from ftp.gps.caltech.edu:/pub/amanda,
with version 2.3.0.3. A very good backup system, with no dollar
investment. (David Olsen,
It's now possible, in several fashions, to backup systems over a network or even a modem, for recovery from fires and even disk crashes.
Channel extenders, such as the CHANNELink
www.cnt.com from CNT and the Symmetrix
Remote Data Facility www.emc.com, are used by some
mainframe systems to create remote copies of disks (remote mirroring)
as a disaster recovery measure. Early systems used dedicated fibre or
telephone lines and ran proprietary communications protocols. Newer
systems from CNT are capable of communicating over general-purpose
wide-area networks, thus saving the costs of the dedicated lines.
It's also possible to backup PCs over your modem in an incremental
fashion, through your ISP; one example is www.telebackup.com.
email me at rdv@isi.edu
Copyright 1996 Rod Van Meter