Re: backup strategies

Richard P. Welty writes:

> a couple of gig, not really all that much. the problem is that there is
> an expectation of one or more persons/organizations going through
> due diligence on the operation, and i'm not sure that a fuzzy
> "somewhere online" file storage service will pass the smell test for
> many of them, where as physical tape cartridges stored offsite will
> likely make them happy.

I think you should worry much more about getting the procedure done right
over making somebody happy.

Some of the problems with tape systsems, in my humble opinion,
are:

1- More often than not there isn't a second tape unit somewhere to use
in case the physical location where the tape unit is, becomes unavailable.
Having tapes offsite is useless if you don't have a tape unit handy to put
the tapes. Also not only you need a tape unit, but you also need whatever
program was used to do the backups to tape.

2- If and when the tape unit dies you need to have a backup scheme until you
get the unit repaired.

3- Restore tests are usually not done enough to make sure the process is
actually working. You would be surprised how often people have a system they
believe works.. to only find out at restore time that it had been failing
for a long time.

I suggest you look into a multi-stage approach. One form of backup tape and
a second approach such as a second machine where you usually do restores.
Amazon's S3 can also be a good second location.

Just today I was taking a glance at python code to use S3 and looked pretty
simple. I would, however, encode the data before sending it to S3.

Best of luck in whatever method you choose.