Backup software

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CyberPunk_1000

Weaksauce
Joined
Jan 31, 2004
Messages
83
Hi all,

What's the current recommended network backup software? I've been through a few in my time and i'm looking for alternatives I could go to.

So far I have used the following:

Backup Exec - Major Solaris backup agent problems and rubbish tech support (bought via Dell)
Arkeia - This has come a long way but previously it would disown its own tapes and the tech support was terrible so because of that i'm reluctant to try again.
Amanda / Zamanda - Pretty good, However there is no Vmware agent I can see I also don't like the fact you need to also backup the tape index file.
Netbackup - Good but the cost is a bit much
Emc / Legato networker - Pricy and a bit complex
Tivoli - I found this very complex

So i'm looking for something opensource, and free ideally. Has any one tried bacula? I've herd it is quite complex. Other requirements are supporting backup to disk. Agents for; Windows Server 2003, 2008, Vmware ESX, Linux (CentO/S and Ubuntu) Solaris (Sparc and x86). Possible backup to Amazon S3.

So, can any one come up with any suggestions?
 
We are just getting our licenses for NetBackup 7 which looks to be promising. I have no experience with it yet so I cannot give any recommendation.
 
For Windows Servers...I've heard many good things about Backup Assist...and am about to use it on a setup soon.

NoveStor is another one that's getting more popular..and one of their guys is a member of this forum.
 
SpaceHonkey said:
For VMware, I think Backup Exec is pretty hard to beat. Not cheap, but works really well.
Click to expand...

Do they have a Storage API backup yet? VCB is going away with 4.1 and all 3rd party backup will need to support vStorageAPI.

I would strongly suggest using VMware's product vDataRecovery, works really well and we are about to drop our vRanger Pro to switch to it. It is very good at re-trying backups and following VMs that move due to DRS or HA.
 
Unfortunately I can't speak to vSphere as we haven't had the time to migrate yet :(

With 3.5, the agent connects to the vCenter server which you then simply check a box on what VMs to backup. Does not matter if the VMs move around. The only pain is file level restores. You need to restore the vmdk to a temp space, mount it from the vcb server, then copy the files to the destination. Not as simple as using a native agent.

That said, it works flawlessly. My smaller VMs (20GB disk with ~4GB used) backup in about 2 minutes.

Oh, and NetBackup for us is unfortunately far too expensive.
 
Acronis True Image has yet to fail me. Physical or virtual, it just works.
 
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