----------------------------------------------------------------- NOV-BAK2.DOC -- 19960928 -- Email thread on NetWare Backup issues ----------------------------------------------------------------- Feel free to add or edit this document and then email it back to faq@jelyon.com Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 20:25:49 +0000 From: Gunnar Jensen Subject: Re: SCSI DAT Tape Drives >>I'm looking for a new backup system for a small 3.12 server. I am >>interested in a SCSI DAT drive in the 1G to 4G range, but I am really not >>sure what to look for. Does anyone have a favorite model number they >>wish to share with me? >> >>P.S. Looking for something inexpensive too ;) > >We have had good luck with our Connor 4Gb DAT. Don't look for "something inexpensive", look for something reliable. When (not if) disaster strikes, you would rather be the hero that saved the day than the cheapscate who didn't realise the value of the data that you "thought" was safe on tape. I recommend, whithout hesitation, the HP line of DAT streamers, having sold, installed and used hundreds of them. ALL backup software supports them and they are VERY reliable and HP has great hardware warranty and support everywhere in the world. For more information about HP DAT-streamers: http://www.dmo.hp.com/tape/_cpb0003.htm (I'm in no way affiliated with HP, I just know they have great products) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 13:55:58 -0500 From: DeepakBhatia Subject: Re: NDS Backup >Is there a way to backup the NDS tree of any particular server to disk. Check out dsarc and dsrest - will let you backup and restore nds on a container basis. They are available from Palindrome's (Now Seagate) BBS or www site. www.palindrome.com BTW - NDS Partition replicas are placed on servers - NDS do not belong to a server. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 10:34:55 +0100 From: Wolfgang Boerner Subject: Re: Q. Backing-up open files >Is there a backup software that would backs up the open files on NW3.12 >servers. Look for the St. Bernard Open file Manager for NetWare: http://www.stbernard.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 23:07:55 -6 From: "Mike Avery" To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re: mutiple servers vs super server >Well a second processor won't help you much with Novell but the RAM >and HD upgrade would. I would stay away from volumes over 10 GB >simply because they tend to exhaust the directory entries before the >actual space is used ( a limit Novell doe not readily publicize). Another reason to stay away from large volumes..... my previous boss insisted that no volume be larger than what you can restore in an hour. This is a moving target. As tapes and nets get faster, volumes can get larger. His feeling is that almost any user can tolerate an hour wait. But when you get into the 8 to 10 hours restore range, almost any user can get testy. I tend to agree with him. Of course, as with everything in this industry, your mileage may vary. You may find that you have huge data bases that mandate larger volumes. At that point, SFT III may start looking better. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 09:47:40 -0800 From: Dave Lehman Subject: info for Novell FAQ Some info that might be useful in section H.19.1 of the FAQ: Backup Software products for NetWare Legato has an interesting NetWare backup product called "Legato Data Backup Utility" or "LDBU for NetWare". It is a stripped down version of their full Networker product but stilly fully functional. It is positioned as an alternative to SBACKUP, and a stepping stone to their fully-featured Networker product. It backs up NetWare 4.1, including NDS, but only in a *one*-server-*one*-tape-drive situation. Therefore, it has limited application, but the good news is it only costs $20! Can't get many other NDS-aware backup products in that ballpark. I've been using it for a few months now, and it seems to work well. The configuration is a bit tricky but once you figure out their terminology it's pretty straightforward. Tech support via CompuServe has been fairly helpful as well. For info on LDBU for Netware, go to: http://www.legato.com/WWWPROD/press/ldbu_pr.html To order directly from their WWW site, fill out the form at: http://www.legato.com/forms/ldbu-form.html You can also contact Legato through CompuServe with GO LEGATO or contact Legato directly at phone: 415-812-6000, faxback: 415-812-6156 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 10:08:20 -0500 From: SNanni@aol.com To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re: Backup Recommends You may wish to investigate pure NDS backup solutions. All three products you mention backup the NDS, but some require bindery context to be set, which requires a replica. We had Palindrome, it crashed servers, etc. and Palindrome couldn't fix it. Palindrome does not require a replica, it is a pure NDS product. We looked into Arcada, the features it offers are impressive, but it reuires bindery contex to be set (which means it needs a replica). In November we dumped Palindrome and went back to Arcserve 5. It is easy to use, but it also requires a bindery context, not only on the server running Arcserve 5, but on any other server you want to backup from your backup server (we use DLTs, so having one server backup itself and another is acceptable). Arcserve 6.0 is out and has received good reviews on this list, it is a pure NDS product, no replica required on the backup server. We are planning to move to this but will probably wait for 6.1. Palindrome has also received good press on this list, I personally don't reccomend the product but many people have found it to be their solution. Scott Nanni, CNE ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 16:54:51 -0500 From: MIssMicki@aol.com To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re: Backup Recommends Palindrome is a great product and I've been using it for 5 years. Have had to restore from tape many times and it was a life saver. However, it is slow. Takes several hours to restore, but a proven product. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 17:37:32 -0500 From: JST604@aol.com (Joe Thompson) To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re: Backup Recommends >I use a Quantum DLT 4000 tape drive in my mixed server environment. > >Holds up to 20gigs per cartidge (non-compressed!) and up to 40gigs >compressed. > >They now have a DLT7000 that holds 35gigs (non-compressed) and has a >fast+wide SCSI interface. > >These DLT drives are SCREAMERS! They kick butt over my DAT (DDS-II) >and 8mm drives. They have a much longer head life etc... I could send >you many recent articles that compare the 4mm DAT to the DLT. Or, >check out http://www.quantum.com under new products. They have a good >comparison chart. I completely concur with you on this...the DLT are the best things going, we use a 4 drive array. We use the JetSERVE software from Cheyenne, simple and FAST. The only problem is that we are having trouble getting ahold of the 20 gig tapes. We can get by with the 10 GIG for now but we will out grow those shortly I'm afraid. Any good sources??? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 17:54:56 -0500 From: JST604@aol.com (Joe Thompson) To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re: Backup Recommends >>I use a Quantum DLT 4000 tape drive in my mixed server environment. >> >>Holds up to 20gigs per cartidge (non-compressed!) and up to 40gigs >>compressed. > >About how long does it take to backup 20 gigs? We are also considering >DLT vs. 4mm... I'm getting about 15GB an hour, but that is a 4 drive array. Our single drive gets about 4-6GB per hour. An 8 drive stripe is said to get upwards to 40GB per hour but since we are only backing up 36GB at a time we didn't need a 320GB capacity array.. Remember a couple of years ago when a 1GB drive was really something ?!?! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 17:54:30 -0500 From: JST604@aol.com (Joe Thompson) To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re: Backup Recommends >No personal experience with the three, but I've heard hear-say from the CNE >we go to for advice.... > >Cheyenne - Excellent >Arcada - Don't bother... pain in the butt >Palindrome - Also very good but more difficult to set up.... > >Can anyone confirm this otherwise slanted (Cheyenne) opinion? I'll probably >be making the same decision in the near future. Hmmm... I found the Backup exec to be fairly easy to use but that was on a small network only a 1 GB drive. Palidrome I found to be a pain in the rear but then again I like simplicity in my backups it rotation scheme is a bit too messy for may taste. I don't particularly care for the ARCSERVE line from Cheyenne but it's better than palidrome by far. The simpliest (see the theme here?) backup software it the JETSERVE line from Cheyenne, it takes about 15 minutes to install and take full avantage of DLT tape arrays. I get about 15 GB an hour without compression from a 4 drive stripe. I hear that it gets better averages with larger data. I haven't found a good backup yet that is truly NDS though. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 03 Mar 1996 16:24:00 -0800 From: Michael Gaskin To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re: Backup Recommends >You may wish to investigate pure NDS backup solutions. All three products >you mention backup the NDS, but some require bindery context to be set, which >requires a replica. We had Palindrome, it crashed servers, etc. and >Palindrome couldn't fix it. Palindrome does not require a replica, it is a >pure NDS product. We looked into Arcada, the features it offers are >impressive, but it reuires bindery contex to be set (which means it needs a >replica). In November we dumped Palindrome and went back to Arcserve 5. It >is easy to use, but it also requires a bindery context, not only on the >server running Arcserve 5, but on any other server you want to backup from >your backup server (we use DLTs, so having one server backup itself and >another is acceptable). Arcserve 6.0 is out and has received good reviews on >this list, it is a pure NDS product, no replica required on the backup >server. We are planning to move to this but will probably wait for 6.1. > Palindrome has also received good press on this list, I personally don't >reccomend the product but many people have found it to be their solution. > >Scott Nanni, CNE Stac Electronics just released Replica. According to thier information it will backup not on the volumes but the C drive also. Plus, it backs up open files. I should be getting a copy of it very soon and I plan on testing it for quite sometime. I'll report back anything strange. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 03 Mar 96 22:48:50 CDT From: John_Cochran@odp.tamu.edu To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re[2]: Backup Recommends >I completely concur with you on this...the DLT are the best things going, >we use a 4 drive array. We use the JetSERVE software from Cheyenne, >simple and FAST. > >The only problem is that we are having trouble getting ahold of the 20 gig >tapes. We can get by with the 10 GIG for now but we will out grow those >shortly I'm afraid. Any good sources??? We have had the same trouble. The 40gig cartidges are hard to get a hold of. We had an order out for 40 of them for a couple of months before they came in. Our last vendor was able to get them rather quickly. When I get into the office on Monday, I will get the source and let you know. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 00:53:26 -0500 From: RHROMYKO@aol.com (Russ Hromyko) To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re: Backup Recommends We use to use Cheyenne Arcserve but half the time it wouldn't work or it would say the backup was successful even though it didn't backup all the files. We switched to Arcada Backup and have had nothing but success. Also its a much easier backup package to install and use. I highly recommend it. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 00:52:22 -0800 From: Randy Grein To: "NetWare 4 list" Subject: Re: Compaq... Giga Trend... Novell SBackup The list is in the readme for the sback updates and in the 3.x and 4.x installation... . The list is pretty small. The HP surestore 2000 works, and the 6000 should. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 00:52:36 -0800 From: Randy Grein To: "NetWare 4 list" Subject: Re: Backup Recommends Scott, Unfortunately you got caught in the '.0' release nightmare. the current rev of Palindrome (4.0b2) is MUCH better than what you had, which was probably 4.0a4 or earlier. I've also heard great things from Arcserve 6, but would recommend waiting at least for a few months - then implement it on a trial basis. I'm getting cynical, and suggesting that people only run backup on a noncritical or runtime server - saves much hair loss. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 00:52:50 -0800 From: Randy Grein To: "NetWare 4 list" Subject: Re: Backup Recommends Ok, I can't confirm - I'd disagree completely! Palindrome 3.1 or 4.0b2- Stone reliable restores, but a little slow. OTOH, it uses FAR less tape to completely protect a system, and gives great version control, too. Also, by defaulting to Tower of Hanoi (complicated) instead of GFS there's much less likelihood of losing a file, say, from 3 weeks ago. The current rev of the 4.0 product, 4.0b2 is great - speed is much better, too. BTW, the database files are relatively tiny. Arcserve 5.01e gave me 500 meg databases with only 20 days coverage on 6 gigs; Palindrome is closer to 60 megs for 6 months for one customer with that much data. If you talk to someone about this product, find out if they're refering to the 3.1 (stable, but ugly hard to understand dos c-worthy type interface) or the earlier 4.0 product (unstable as hell until 4.0a5). Arcserve 5.01G - finally solid, mature. The 6.0 product is out, but let someone else risk their data. Test it for a while, see what breaks. Much more traditional backup, can do multiple tape drives if you have multiple targets. I don't like the restore module, it's a pain trying to get whole or partial directories. Arcada - Kind of weird server interface, but not too bad otherwise. The workstation console at least is straightforward. Requires bindery emulation to work. Recently purchased by Seagate, who also owns Palindrome. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 19:41:35 +0800 From: "Michael Mollard" To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re: Backup Recommends My CNI (I'm on an NDS D&I course) today mentioned that the reason Novell packages SBACKUP with NW4.x is that it is able to backup the NDS and any _extended schemas_ in the NDS. I don't know if any other products can yet do this. He recommended that at the very least, every now and then, to use SBACKUP to get a COMPLETE NDS backup. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 04 Mar 1996 08:55:40 -0800 From: "Michael S. Pohl" To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re: Backup Recommends >I'm currently looking at purchasing a new 4mm tape drive and backup >software for a 5 server, mixed 3.1X and 4.1 environment. I would like >opinions and experiences good or bad on a couple of products. On the >tape drive side I'm looking at an external HP Surestore >6000e/12000e(autoloader). On the software side I'm considering three >packages, ArcServe, Arcada Backup Exec and Palindrome. Any info on >these products would be extremely helpful. We currently have 2 HP 12000e externals and 1 12000e internal on our 4.1 server dedicated to backing up our campus and 4 remote sites. We are using Arcada's Backup Exec Enterprise Edition 7.1 with the Autoloader option. We are backing up 30 Gigs of disk space on 2 3.11 boxes, 3 3.12 boxes, 2 4.1 boxes, and 4 NT boxes. The only problems we have encountered with this hardware/software combo is one 12000e (internal) tape drive's autoloader went toes up after 5 months of reliable service. Tapes wouldn't load correctly, and if they did load, they wouldn't unload. HP warranty support services were great. They had another tape drive here by a tech in 3 days. We initially had multiple software problems with Arcada's version 5 software, but after the upgrade - smooth sailing. As for ArcServe - we were an ArcServe shop until July of last year, when we switched over to Arcada. I haven't seen the new ArcServe stuff in action yet but we couldn't wait for them to fix their bugs with NDS backup services. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 19:53:49 -0600 From: "Mike Avery" To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re: Backup Recommends >DLT drives may scream on large files butI have found the performance >tends to drop off when backing up large amounts of files that are >lessless than 3K in size. The drive appears to lag when it must stop >and start as it travereses directory structures several layers >deep... With all due respect, that's not a DLT problem. Regardless of the tape media or backup package, you will find better performance when fewer larger files are backed up as opposed to more smaller ones. Finding the next file, opening it, finding the data, and closing the file take appreciable amounts of time. Even a relatively slow DAT or 600 series tape drive will show degradation due to this situation. One answer, in a multiple server environment, is to find a backup package that can interleave the backups onto a single media. This allows the system to keep the tape drive busy. Legato does this. I think that both Symantec's Norton Enterprise Backup and Arcada can also do this. In the grand scheme of things, this one feature should not be enough to decide the purchasing decision. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 21:49:01 -0600 From: "Mike Avery" To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re: Backup Recommends >>I haven't found a good backup yet that is truly NDS though >>[so I use SBackup occasionally] > >Is backing up the NDS even required if there are replicas of each >partition? That depends on how cautious, or paranoid, one is. A replica protects you against most accidental damage, but will not protect against error, stupidity, or malice. Or, once the users are deleted, how are you going to get them back? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 19:50:49 +0000 From: "Tim Stewart" To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re: Open file manager >I've got a database of about 100GB in size. The problem is that there >are ALWAYS open files. NO GETTING AROUND IT. > >Do any of you folks know of a backup utility that can manage open files? Palindrome handles open files very well....Since I've put it into operation, I've never had to deal with files not being backed up because they were open for some operation by some user. As complex as this data seems, from your comments, tho, the thing for you to concentrate on is integrity....realize that there ARE in fact products which will back up open files....you should concentrate on how this ability will affect relationships within the data structure, and how to avoid having inconsistant relationships as a result of backing up a group of files, some of which are currently being manipulated by users, others of which are idle, allbeit open by a user. Do consider Palindrome. --------- Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 21:57:36 -0600 From: "Mike Avery" To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re: Open file manager St. Bernard Software, 619-676-2277, has a product called the "Open File Manager". I've not used it, but seen favorable comments on it. It works with most backup products, and sells for $495.00 per server. --------- Date: Mon, 04 Mar 1996 21:40:44 -0800 From: Michael Gaskin To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re: Open file manager Stac Electronics makes a backup solution called Replica. This product, according to the docs, will backup open files. It also backs up the local C: drive on the server. Plus, you actually mount the tape and map a drive to it. --------- Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 23:52:59 -0800 From: Randy Grein To: "NetWare 4 list" Subject: Re: Open file manager Also, recall that Palindrome does have an oracle backup agent, which allows you to back up the database with assurance! It costs, but if ya need it... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 21:51:53 -0600 From: "Mike Avery" To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re: Backup Recommends >Has anybody had any experience with Norton Enterprise Backup? > >It is what we use here at The Sabre Group and I am interested in >comments from other users. I looked at it recently, and was very favorably impressed. It is stable, easy to setup and easy to use. It could be a bit faster, and it could support more clients, but. those details are being worked on. I think that it is the one to watch - the reliability and simplicity issues are what win me over. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 05:09:38 -0500 From: SNanni@aol.com (Scott Nanni) To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re: Open file manager If time is more important than money...We use a product called Vinca Standby Server. What it does is basically allows one server to mirror another, but its not SFT III. The stanby server has a disk array equal to the primary server's plus another disk for running a second installation of Novell. Through a dedicated link between the two servers, the Standby server makes the disk array available to the primary for mirroring. The primary server thinks that this disk array in the Standby server is actually his and uses standard Novell mirroring. The Standby server then allows you to break the link between the mirrored pairs, but buffers changes to the seperate disk that is running the Standby server. To the primary server the mirror hasn't changed. This now allows you to backup the disk array on the Standby server with no open files at the time the link was broken. Once the link is restored, the buffered changes are updated to the mirrored array and the mirror operates as normal. Another feature of this is that the Standby server also monitors the primary and if the primary goes down automatically reboots itself and comes up as the primary server. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 13:18:29 -0500 From: bhatia@chelsea.ios.com (DeepakBhatia) To: NETW4-L@BGU.EDU Subject: Backing up NDS NDS can be backed up by using Commercial packages like Palindrome, Arcserve, etc and also as follows: JCMD.nlm can be used to backup NDS from netlab2.usu.edu /sys/anonftp/apps/jcmd.zip DsArc and DsRest by Palindrome will allow you to back up NDS on a container basis. Check out their BBS for this. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 22:51:33 -0500 From: JST604@aol.com (Joe Thompson) To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re: Backup Recommends >>Actually this has more to do with the backup software than the DLT tape >>drive itself. This is one reason we choose an image backup software as >>opposed to a file system based. It basically sucks the data off bit by >>bit, so the length or structure of the files are irrelevant. An image >>restore is also quite fast since it uses the same theory. Now a file by >>file restore is another story....that takes a long time. > >This is OK for TOTAL system restores, which are rare. IMNSOH this is a >totally unacceptable backup solution, as it gives you no ability to >restore just ONE file. BTW, what software ARE you using? I haven't seen >anything like this in years! If you read the message you'd see that I didn't say it couldn't restore a single file, (it can, and it's quite easy to do so.) I was simply saying it takes a lot longer to do it that way. You can actually restore a 4GB volume faster than you can retrieve 4MB of files scattered over the same volume image. The software backs up by volume image, not system image (I don't know WHERE you got that from). The software does have the ability to READ the file structure on the image, but the fact that it doesn't have to use that structure allows for the backup and volume restores to run at faster speeds. Like 15GB an hour!! as an added bonus since it backs up a volume image, the NDS databases automatically get backed up with the SYS: volume. I've mentioned it before it's called JETServe, it's from Cheyenne (it used to be called Datajet when Netframe sold it). It is specifically designed for tape arrays but performs respectably on just one drive. It also has several standard features like a scheduler, error logging, user quieseing etc. and it's an NLM so it can be loaded and unloaded, and it runs completely from the console (or of course Rconsole). I'd read a little more about a product before dismissing it, because your NSHO is totally wrong. It's not only acceptable, it's perferred....we dumped palidrome for it. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 20:16:41 -0500 From: JST604@aol.com (Joe Thompson) To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re: Backup Recommends >Whoops! I stand corrected on this one! I was working on some outdated >information regarding image backups, which used to be the rage for file >server protection. I have since looked up the product, and it looks >interesting. Could you tell us, though, how does it handle tape rotation >and incremental backups? In other words, do you have the ability to >archive data or do you keep month end backups? As I see from the software (and I could be mistaken). There is no incremental backup...you choose a volume or nothing. Makes sense considering it deals with volumes instead of files. Tape rotation is basically a network admin technique and not dictated by software schemes. We view our backup's primary function as a disaster recovery and not as an archival process. We rotate 4 weeks worth of tapes (full backup every night) and we do archive the end of month tape(s). I've always been an advocate of full backups as opposed to incremental, it's just a matter of preference. I know you can save tapes by doing incrementals but then again one bad tape can kill and entire week instead of a day huh? Just a personal preference. I guess that's why I like this scheme of the DLT arrays and this software. It allows a full backup each night with a small window. If we do take a hit on an 8 or 11 GB volume then we don't have to restore the last full, then the next incremental, then the next incremental and so on and so on. I tend to work in large shops so downtime is "run for your life" time. Multiple copies of a full backup gives us a little more secure feeling. Actually you can append to the end of these tapes and since they hold 20GB a piece native and up to 40GB compressed I guess you could fit more than one backup on them. Again, not something I'm fond of doing, but it's certainly viable. BTW this software works with DAT tape arrays as well, actually that was where we first used them. I think Quantum and Cheyenne both have web sites that describe these things. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 23:25:39 -0800 From: Randy Grein To: "NetWare 4 list" Subject: Re: Backup Recommends >As I see from the software (and I could be mistaken). There is no >incremental backup...you choose a volume or nothing. Makes sense considering >it deals with volumes instead of files. > >Tape rotation is basically a network admin technique and not dictated by >software schemes. We view our backup's primary function as a disaster >recovery and not as an archival process. We rotate 4 weeks worth of tapes >(full backup every night) and we do archive the end of month tape(s). Now this is something that we disagree on, but it CAN be handled that way. Manual tape rotation historically has a high error rate, and I've seen too many clients screwed by it to be really comfortable. Of course, most were much smaller shops that couldn't take the time for full training or care (until too late). >I've always been an advocate of full backups as opposed to incremental, it's >just a matter of preference. I know you can save tapes by doing incrementals >but then again one bad tape can kill and entire week instead of a day huh? >Just a personal preference. Yeah, that's what attracted me to Palindrome's solution. VERY elegant method of preventing that problem, although it tends to break down with very large volumes. Your solution is a completely different approach to the problem, and bears consideration. >I guess that's why I like this scheme of the DLT arrays and this software. >It allows a full backup each night with a small window. If we do take a hit >on an 8 or 11 GB volume then we don't have to restore the last full, then the >next incremental, then the next incremental and so on and so on. Yea, that's the shortcoming of such schemes with unintellegent backups. Without the intellegent software I recommend fulls whenever feasable. >I tend to work in large shops so downtime is "run for your life" time. >Multiple copies of a full backup gives us a little more secure feeling. Yes, and speed is worth $50,000 an hour! >Actually you can append to the end of these tapes and since they hold 20GB a >piece native and up to 40GB compressed I guess you could fit more than one >backup on them. Again, not something I'm fond of doing, but it's certainly >viable. > >BTW this software works with DAT tape arrays as well, actually that was >where we first used them. > >I think Quantum and Cheyenne both have web sites that discribe these things. I'll have to look into this. Admittedly it doesn't handle archiving, and it sounds like finding and restoring versions of files would be the typical pain, but it does sound fast. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 16:02:05 -0500 From: MajDon@aol.com To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re: Backup Recommends I have ben testing out the latest ArcServe (v.6.0) and have found it to be quick, and relatively simple. Cheyenne carried forward the better features of ArcServe 5 included the many fixes and brought us 6.0. So far so good. Simple to install. Safer to run than anything else I have tried, Works well on NW 3 and 4, and easy to understand. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 15:05:38 -0800 From: Randy Grein To: "NetWare 4 list" Subject: Re: ArcServe Question >We currently are using Arcserve version 4.0 and have been told >specifically that this version does not backup the NDS database >but everytime we perform a server backup the first thing it does >appears to be doing just that. Any ideas. Arcserve is backing up the emulated bindry. This won't do much good if you try to restore it, though. You really need to upgrade to either 6.0 or another product. In the meantime jump up on Palindrome (Seagate software)'s web site and get DSARC; NLM and EXE programs that ONLY get the directory and save it to a file that you can then save, copy, etc. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 16:26:55 -0800 From: Jonn Martell Subject: Re: Server Upgrade >I am getting ready to upgrade an existing EISA server that uses an >Adaptec 1740 controller with Seagate 4.3Gb and 2.1Gb Barracuda drives. > >The new system is a Compaq Proliant 1500 with the integrated 32 bit >Fast SCSI-2 Controller. > >The question is will I be able to simply move the drives, and copy >the proper *.DSK, to the Compaq and have the drives operational, or >will I get to test out the Disaster Plan, and reformat the Drives >and reload from Tape. (The Drives are mirrored so I will have a >complete set to recover from, hopefully. Testing out the recovery plan might not be a bad idea. Running Adaptec formatted drives on the Compaq controllers is not ideal. This is what I would do if I were you: Take a mirror set and move it to the new system. Reformat using the Compaq utilities. Add the the 1740 and boot using the other mirror set. Re-partition the newly create Compaq-formatted drives and duplex the info from the 1740 drives. Once fully duplexed, shut down and remove the 1740 (and drives). Test to make sure that the new drives and controller work well. Remove the mirroring. Format the second set (which was connected to the 1740) using the Compaq utility and then add the drives and remirror to your new system. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 14:07:51 -0600 From: Joe Doupnik Subject: Re: Palindrome Backup Director 4.0b - airing a complaint. >Just airing a complaint... When I purchased PBD 4.0 the sales person >(direct from Palindrome) knew that I had a 100 user Netware 3.11 server, >but sold me the 25 user version of PBD since I indicated that in terms of >users backup to the server, at most 18 or so people would be doing this. >PBD 4.0b, upon installation, informed me that I had 45 days of trial >period to straighten out my licensing problems before it would expire. >I called Palindrome technical support, now Seagate, and was informed that >the licensing ALWAYS must match the file server's license and gee, it just >wasn't working right in PBD 4.0. > >Well, I called Seagate Sales today, and basically, I can 1) buy a license >for $495, which is way more than I bought the competetive upgrade for >originally, bringing the total to $694; 2) pay $499 for Arcada backup exec >or 3) find another vendor. -------------- Your complaint is with the vendor, not with us. You might shop carefully and note that Arcada's BackupExec has no server license count sensitivity (and the Enterprise edition works across the entire site). Vendor docs almost always state license count sensitivity, and when they do there is no point in coming to this list with your surprize. Joe D. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 08:00:48 -0500 From: James Federline Subject: Re: backup tapdrive for Netware >I'm looking for $500 or less tape drive to backup my Netware 3.12 >server files (either from a workstation or a server)? > >Anyone know what the best 4mm tape drive out there is by your >experience? You want 4mm DAT for less than $500? And if you find it, you're going to trust your server to it? Try your hardest to get that budget knocked up higher, unless you want to buy the more traditional tape mechanisms (slower and noisier). The lowest priced DAT I've seen is from APS Technologies, a Macintosh-mostly drive VAR. They have a 2GB (90M tape) 4mm DAT internal (looks like a Sony mechanism) for $649 I believe. No compression. And stay away from WangDAT drives like the 3100 and 3200. We've had no end of trouble with them. Don't buy a used one, either. A DAT that I can always recommend is any HP DAT based on the C1533A mechanism (which includes some of the Surestore models, but I'm not hip on which ones yet). We run a C1533A with 120M tapes with compression turned on and ARCserve 5.01g. If I have any say in the matter (which I do :-), I'm going to buy a second when the time comes. Prices hover between $1000 and $1150. It's 4GB native, ~8GB compressed. And don't forget to work through a nice, cooperative local reseller. Your working relationship with this person or people is what counts when your tape drive dies and you need a cross ship (if a warranty repair) or a loaner (if it was your fault). ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 19:19:56 +0100 From: Richard Letts Subject: Re: Suggestions on backup hardware/software >>>Could anyone recommend a proven backup solution for a Novell LAN that >>>contains a mixture of 3.x & 4.x servers? >>> >>>We need a solution that's fully NDS aware, backup open files, backup >>>ALL our servers with minimal operator intervention, and do unattended >>>backups at night with confidence. We're leaning towards an internal >>>or external 8mm tape drive placed in a workstation, since our operators >>>are accustomed to this type of tape. Having used: qic-24... qic-150... qic-250, 1600bpi NRZI, 6250bpi GCR, dat(4mm), exabyte(8mm), DLT... My opinion on hardware: The QIC and HIC formats are reliable workhorses, but have a low density. I've never had problems getting data of these media, even badly abused tapes work. I would not normally consider these for fileservers as all of ours are much large than will fit on one tape. 4mm tapes -- I've never had reliability problems with these either; we moved away from them because the supplier of fileservers follwing a government procurement fitted (22) 8mm tape drives, and dropping out single drive seemed sensible. we have recently purcased two systems with 4mm HP drives in them and are reliable. (one Unix, and one NDS-root server running sbackup) 4GB/tape 8mm tapes. suck rocks. or rather the tape drives do. we are into having our own microcode tape for the drives and currently have an record for this year of 19/22 drives working. a week does not go by without a drive going back for repair. benefits: 5GB/tape, but... DLT tapes (20GB): smooth and fast, this is the way a tape drive should be! our new filestore servers have these fitted. performance is phenominal and reliability is atleast 7 times that of the exabytes over the same period... and growing (ie no faults on any drive so far). this is going to be our preferred format for backup of large fileservers. 20GB per tape. the tapes are expensive at GBP80 each ($120) but the quality! I've quoted uncompressed data rates above; manufacturers will quote 2:1 to 4:1 compression ratios, but my belief in compression ratios isn't very high. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 May 1996 06:00:00 CDT From: Larry Dolinar Subject: Re: Backup Server from a workstation >My boss has asked me to help him find a backup program to do the >following: > 1> Backup the server from a workstation > 2> Software should span multiple tape drives > 3> Backup bindery files, system files Arcada Backup Exec, Windows Workstation Edition (includes DOS client). Right around $100, your mileage may vary. If you have a Web browser, check http://www.arcada.com for SCSI controller compatibility. >We are working Conner SCSI QIC 80 tape drives Depending on size of your volumes, blow this unit away and get a DAT drive. Much more dependable, unit costs more but media cost a fraction. Think about the future, within reason. >2> Novell 3.12 Same here. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 May 1996 09:49:57 -0600 From: Joe Doupnik Subject: Re: ISA SCSI Card in EISA Server. >After reading some comments in the list regarding the desirability of >placing internal DAT drives on their own controller, I decided to >go that route (the server currently has 2 disks and 1 tape on the >integrated SCSI controller in a Compaq Prosignia VS running NetWare >3.11). > >When I contacted my vendor for an "appropriate" SCSI controller they >provided an inexpensive Adaptec AHA-1510A, an ISA bus controller, not >EISA. My first reaction was to send it back, immediately followed by Good instincts. Act upon them. >the "but if it will do the job, why not?". Yes, but. That's about the least efficient board you can find. Not only is it ISA bus but it is a very simple non-bus mastering port i/o item which requires the server cpu to do every bit of the work, intensively. Expect large cpu utilization and inefficient use of the tape drive (wear and tear on drive and tapes as it starts and stops too often). >Technically, I know it would be more appropriate to use an EISA >controller in the server, but is there any other compelling reason to >avoid ISA controllers in EISA servers? I realize my ignorance is >showing, but when you are "jack of all computer trades" in a small >organization you are master of none. Get an Adaptec 2742 controller and make your server happy. Tape i/o is an extremely intensive operation and your machine needs all the peripheral help it can get on the matter. Joe D. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 08:40:18 -0700 From: Cyril Ward Subject: Re: Abend + Arcserve after installing libup8 410it6 410pt3 >>Yesterday i updated our file servers with the latest patches and nlm's >>e.g. libup8 410it6 410pt3 etc. >> >>3 of 6 of my core file servers abended last night just at the moment when >>ARCserve tried to perform a backup at these servers. >> >>ARCserve was not running on any of these servers but on a seperate >>machine. I just got off the phone with Cheyenne Tech Support as I have the same problem. They say that there are two known abends - backing up mutiple servers and backing up nds from the primary server. The fix is to get 4 patches - RAAW6017.ZIP, RAAW6020.ZIP, RAAW6025.ZIP AND RAAW6038.ZIP located at ftp.cheyenne.com/pub/ARCserve-5-6xx/. Cheyenne Tech Support also recommends adding the following set commands set read fault emulation=on set write fault emulation=on set read notification=on set write fault notification=on --------- Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 17:52:34 +0100 From: Richard Letts Subject: Re: Abend + Arcserve after installing libup8 410it6 410pt3 >set read fault emulation=on >set write fault emulation=on >set read notification=on >set write fault notification=on CARE!!!! these set parameters allow any NLM to read and write from any address, even if there is no memory located there, and under NetWare 4.x if that page is not mapped. Read the manual carefully. If you get alerts, you must notify whoever wrote the NLM. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 May 1996 22:34:01 -0700 From: Randy Grein To: "NetWare 4 list" Subject: Re: ArcServe versus Backup Exec ??? >Can anyone give me real world feedback about these two backup >packages?? Backup Exec is now a Seagate product formerly from Arcada? >What about Palindrome? Very briefly, Seagate owns both products. They're being repositioned for the future - Backup exec is simpler and easier to understand, but Palindrome's Storage manager beats anything else for data management. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 May 1996 16:22:01 +0200 From: "Arthur B." Subject: Re: Disaster Recovery Plan >Is there anybody who have a disaster recovery plan where I can get some >ideas and recommendations. I'm working with the disaster recovery plan >for the company that I work for, and will be a great help for me if a >have an existing recovery plan for reference. Most disaster plans are very specific. In other words they must fit like a handmade glove. A disaster recovery plan is a part of what you want (IMHO). Basicly what you need to do is size up what you have, what you want and how much of that you can buy and test it. What you have: Let's say a WAN with printers, fileservers, routers, printers, etc. Lot's of users, some of them in critical position (eg: they must have a printer, a PC and a couple of files or else it will cost the company money). There is information flow between departments and some people must make decisions before certain information can go on. What you want: First determine what company functions are most vital (I mean that some users need certain resources to work, which doesn't mean a fully functional WAN), somewhat vital, not so vital, etc. It depands on what the users need. Eg, if the salesdepartment can do there job by writing down orders on a piece of paper for a while they are not vital. If they need access to a large database to even be able to to do there job they are vital. As long as you see it from an admins side of view. But printers, faxes, telephones can be vital too! In fact disaster plans are not intended to keep your computers running but to make sure the most vital company functions keep on going no matter what. Now size up what can go wrong. Powerfailure, fileserver crash, file corruption, failed printer, defecto fax, run out of supplies (paper, cartridge, whatever), fire, break-ins, theft, waterdamage, dead admin, company spies, etc. Each of these problems has a solution which will ensure very fast recovery. But management will probarly not allow the money needed to reach 99.99% safety no matter what. So they will look to you to determine which is absolutly needed (eg: backups in a fireproof and off-site place). If this sounds overdone go out and watch how a building looks like after a big fire. Try finding your tape in that mess! Checklist: 1. Do I know how to handle any problem I can think up and/or do I know who to contact to handle the problem for me? How fast and how good are those contacts? 2. As there will be problems that can happen but I don't have the means to soften the pain I should ask myself how big the possibility for such an event is and how destructive it would be. Based on that is there a need to reconsider or life with the risk? (company spies, virus-attack, dead admin). 3. Now that I have covered everything possible and know what to do in each event and accepted the risk for certain things it's time to put this knowledge on a piece of paper. 4. I'll test the piece of paper by giving it to someone else and see if that person is now capable of handling problems. 5. I'll now make company wide instructions about 'what-to-do-if'. So allmost everyone knows what to do and what not do! I'll also make sure new employees will what to do with them. 6. I'll shedule unannounced disasters to test if everybody is up to date (sometimes known as military drill). What can you buy: Best would be triple fallback systems (servers, networks, etc), everything on UPS and real-time mirroring of data to a remote side which is capable of becoming the new office within a day or less. Besides that every file is crypted and users only get to see that part of the information they absolute need. In fact there are several admins each of them with a specific task so noone can access everything or know all. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 13:27:28 -0600 From: Joe Doupnik Subject: Re: Adaptec 2740 and Drive deactivation >I had a problem similiar to this happen twice, bu with 1542's. I have a >1542 hooked up to an internal 2gig disk and an external Exabyte 8200. > >Both times, everything was fine until the backups ran. Upon examining >Acrserve's logs after recovering the server, I found that the tape drive >stopped responding, at which point Arcserve (or would it be the >controller?) sent as SCSI bus reset. I'm assuming it did this to try >fixing its link to the tape drive. This reset caused the disk to >deactivate. I couldn't get the tape out without powering off >the tape drive. > >In the first instance, replacing the tape drive fixed it. In the second >instance, replacing the controller fixed it. -------- Believable. Arcserve & similar high end tape backup programs are overachievers. They POLL the living daylights out of the tape drive SCSI connection, and the server's cpu utilization reflects this behavior. NetWare is not a preemptive operating system; it is a cooperative (voluntary) release kind. Thus when an NLM wants to it can hog the machine, and tape programs do so in spades. Things break under that kind of stress. I use Arcada's BackupExec. It too polls nearly as fast as it can go. In release 5 I turned off fast file finding (or similar name); in BE release 7 it's off by default. This helps a lot. The Adaptec 2742AT is a fine board. I use a bunch and they give no trouble. But not all SCSI devices are created equal. Weak sisters need help by turning down the speed on their SCSI bus, by turning off frills in disk drives (NO CACHING), and so on. In the end some devices are designed so poorly that nothing much helps (see many CD-ROM players as living examples, plenty of disk drives qualify too). Please attend to the buses on the PC. Tell all controllers to release the EISA bus early; don't let them sit on it for a long time after their expiry notice has arrived. Dig into the Bios and use conservative settings on memory, cache, etc. There is no way we can tell what's wrong there via Email, so use shrewd estimates of behavior. Ensure that the EISA config program has been run against the motherboard too, such that all memory is denoted there and there is NO Register Memory command at the NetWare level. Check your SCSI cabling, and if necessary use active SCSI terminators on external lines. Recall, cheap external SCSI cables are skinny and totally worthless; good cables are fat as your thumb, expensive, and worth every penny. If in doubt about electricals please call in a local guru. Joe D. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 11:19:27 -0600 From: Joe Doupnik Subject: Re: Tape Drives for Netware 4.1 >>I'm looking for recommendations on tape drive units and software >>that will back up a Netware 4.1 server with 1GB of data. I'm >>concerned about NDS on this server and want to be sure that we back >>up everything important. >> >>Unfortunately, cost IS a factor so I've been looking at some of the >>TRAVAN type drives. Any recommendations/suggestions will be >>greatly appreciated. ---------- Please, let's engineer a solution rather than make a hobby class machine. Sure, cost is always a factor, everywhere. But let us also look at the purpose of backups: recover from immediate failures, recover data archived over long periods. The tinker-toy hobbiest items such as the above Travan drive will work, if not pushed, but not reliably nor will they last very long. Such items also cost a lot of money when you count tapes, and more to replace the drive, and they won't stay on the market long either. They are considered junk in the production server business. So we spend money once only, after saving up. A DAT drive is a very good choice at this time. DDS-2 is the target since they will accept 120M 4GB (raw) tapes and are fast. Tape costs are much lower than with the hobbiest stuff; reliability is far far greater. Now we can think of reading tapes made three years ago and thus archiving becomes possible. First choice amongst DAT drives are those made by HP; do not touch Wang* items. Remember, HP will fix your drive ten years from now, if you need it to recover vital backup material. We pay up front for that depth of protection. Get excellent backup software. Less is simply wasting money, time, and maybe your company. It too is spending money wisely. Of the top products Arcada (Seagate sub) makes BackupExec at a reasonable cost compared to the competition, and it really works. Be careful to migrate valuable data to newer backup software as the years progress so you can always read the very oldest backup data. When done you've spent some real money up front, and you won't have to spend it many times over later on under very difficult conditions. And you can rely upon the goods now and several years from now. Quality does count and is very often the cheapest solution in the end. Joe D. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 10:41:27 BST From: Chris Garlick Subject: Re: Replica as a Backup Solution >I was looking for any real world experience with Replica I saw Todd's reply to your question, but a re-read suggests to me that you are after info on 'STAC Replica' (the product), as opposed to NDS partition Replication. If this is not the case, apologies; otherwise, here goes:- I have downloaded a 30-day eval of Replica, (www.stac.com), plus their 'High Performance Option' to add DEC DLT support. This is a SPLENDID product, but one which needs to mature a little. For those of you who don't know, it's not strictly speaking a backup solution, but more along the lines of a Disaster Recovery / Whole-Server-Replication product which simply takes a complete image of your server, DOS partition, Netware partitions, volume info, NDS, file system and all, and dumps it to tape, kind of 'Bitwise', I suppose. Because it doesn't really worry about 'files', it is VERY fast. My initial thoughts are:- 1) Extremely easy install 2) Once up and running, WOW !! Backup of the host server (500Mb) was over before I found a pen to write down the stats. Onto DAT (not DLT) I got 130Mb / min. 3) Backs up EVERYTHING - DOS partition, all NW partitions and volumes, NDS, File system, by default, or you can selectively pick what you want. 4) VERY slick recovery mechanism - you actually MOUNT the tape as a volume. Once mounted, it looks exactly like a (RO) NW volume; you just map a drive to it, and you can navigate around it at will. This is FAST, because the DET is cached at the server. Find the file you want back, and just drag-and-drop it to where you want it; local HDD, floppy, NW volume, etc etc. Replica goes and finds the file on tape, and copies it over; average time 15 seconds to get a single file back like this. 5) The main selling point is the 'Disaster Recovery' feature - which generates 2 floppies and a tape, from which you can bring up a server from cold. I tried this, and it works !! It really does. I did the necessary for my Test server, then trashed the NW partition and FDISKed the DOS partition too. Put in the first floppy and the tape, switched on... DOS boots, SERVER.EXE runs, up comes NW, Replica kicks in, reads the tape, rebuilds the lot. So far, I haven't discovered any NDS synch or partition problems, nor any of the usual headaches about Trusteeships being lost etc etc. Total time to 'Rebuild' my server - 15 minutes. HOWEVER :( Notable hiccups:- 1) With a tape mounted as a vol, serve utilization periodically shoots up to 100% and stays there for 2 mins, then drops back. 2) Achy-Breaky front end needs to mature; if you leave it alone for a while, it gets bored and loses sight of the Replica host server. You need to restart the whole thing. 3) Limited list of 'Warranted Tape Devices' 4) Getting back, say, 10 files in a 'block selection' takes much longer than getting back 10 x single files. 5) No SFTIII support (yet - due in UK July/August). This product is intended almost as a 'poor man`s SFTIII' - in that you get back up and running pretty quick, without needing full server Duplexing. There's a new version out v.soon, which hopefully will address a few of the bugs I found. One thing worth mentioning - because this is a very *new* product, I suppose, I have found the STAC people EXTREMELY helpful, and receptive to comments and bug reports - quite refreshing, really !! By the way, in case this sounds like a sales pitch, it isn't - I have nothing whatsoever to do with STAC. It's just that, after many years, I have finally come across a backup product which actually gives me a warm feeling !! The main selling point is the 'Disaster Recovery' feature - which generates 2 floppies and a tape, from which you can bring up a server ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 9 Jun 1996 16:01:40 -0400 From: Debbie Becker Subject: Re: SBACKUP & NDS >I'm netadminning a modest NW4.1 network, a single Pentium server >with two 1gig hard drives, two CD-ROM drives, and a backup tape of one >kind or another. I currently back it up regulary with SBACKUP (which >backs up the CD-ROM volume as well, har har) and really wondered and >could not understand from the online documentation - Does it back up the >NDS tree as well? > >If not, how do I back up the NDS tree? You will need to load TSANDS prior to running SBACKUP and then pick Directory Services as your target. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 Jun 96 08:14:12 PDT From: bfarrell@mindscape.com To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: Re[2]: Mirroring Drives in two servers? There is also a program written by Peter Sturge - Novell Labs named FSMIRROR.NLM. Current version, or rather the version that I have v.1.03 is a timed one way server to server directory replication. but it is only single directory, you'd have to set up multiple sessions to do a directory structure. There is an XCOPY.NLM (usually a sample is in the NOVUSER section of Compuserve.) which replicates an entire volume (server to server one way also.) There is a program named TaskMaster TASKMSTR.NLM by Avanti Technologies (also samples in the NovUser section of Compuserve or their web site.) It has batch processing capabilities, and server to server data capabilities. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 23:51:30 +0200 From: "Arthur B." Subject: Re: DOS partition in NW 4 >>I am preparing the install of 2 Netware 4.1 servers. And I have >>a question about DOS partition. Novell recomends to have a DOS partition >>of 15 MB of disk space, and add 1 MB of disk space in DOS partition for >>each MB of RAM that the server has. My question is simply: why must I >>add 1MB of disk space to DOS partition for each MB of RAM? Then Joe D. wrote: > And you know enough to laugh at that silly piece of advice. Just >leave plenty of room on the DOS parition for the accumulation of patches >which now are placed on C: rather than on SYS:. The 1MB [per] advice is for core dumps (after certain ABENDS). The advice is somewhat silly because you only need to have such space available *after* being directed to make a core dump by a Novell Technical Center. By that time they can instruct you how to avoid using disks anyway...and you would most probarly wouldn't mind spending a couple of hours playing disk-jockey by that time... How large should your DOS partition be? Big enough to hold the crucial files? Yes. Big enough to hold a copy of the crucial files? Yes. Big enough to hold patches? Yes. Big enough to hold rescue and recovery files (CMOS!!!)? Yes. Big enough to hold some text files with disaster recovery instructions? Y With copies of all of the above on floppy too? Yes. Big enough to hold a 1-on-1 copy of SYSTEM, PUBLIC and LOGIN? Maybe. (it can save you from restoring all those patches at the moment supreme) Big enough to hold restore utils? Maybe. Big enough to hold patch archives and the needed unzipper? Maybe. Overdone? Yes. But that is what I'm paid for. Making sure I create the highest possible chance of recovering in the fastest possible time without losing any information (amongst other things *grin*). With [the low] price of Hard Drvies I wouldn't risk partitioning to less space. 20Mb, 40Mb, 60Mb? Why not, I ask you. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 11:42:26 -0600 From: Joe Doupnik Subject: Re: Are You (Backup Exec 7.0) Experienced ? >I would like to know if anybody has got hands-on experience with >Arcada's Backup Exec v. 7.0. I am experiencing frequent server lockups, >abends etc. since using this product. Are updates available ? Does the >NDS-backup option _really_ work? ----------- My site has a number of Arcada BE v7 installations, and none has reported server lockups from the product. We do use BE heavily. Tape backup programs seem to have three common characteristics which are tough on servers: they use lots of memory, they poll the SCSI bus intensly to keep moving bytes, they use lots of network bandwidth when backing up across the wire. Failures under these conditions often means a weakness in the server, somewhere. Version 7.01 is current, and works fine here. Joe D. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 21 Jun 1996 11:12:38 +0100 From: Steve Holland Subject: Arcserve Database size (reply) >We are running Arcserve 5.01g on NW4.1. We keep monthly tapes for a >year, weekly ones for 6 months and daily ones for a month (46 tapes a >year) using an autopilot cycle. This cycle has been going for >approximately 6 months. The file ASTPDAT.DB has now reached over a GB >in size. Is this natural or is there something we should be doing to >purge this? We are backing up 2 servers with approximately 8GB of data >on them. Turn on purging!! You're lucky to have just 1Gb with six months data! We keep only a day's data in the database before purging it out. Don't forget that a copy of the database is backed up at the end of each tape. It's not a problem to use the Merge Database feature for restores. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Jun 1996 10:56:49 -0600 From: Joe Doupnik Subject: Re: NW 4.10 Gen From DOS Partition >We are designing our 4.1 deployment with Compaq 1500R systems with >DLT drives using ARCserve 6. I am trying to design and deploy an >efficient server recovery process. > >Cheyenne's disaster recovery plan can install a few disks and have >ARCserve ready to go as it was last installed/updated. However, it >requires a re-install of NetWare 4.10 first. Even with SmartStart >this is a timely proposition. > >I'm looking for a DOS partition build that can support complete a >complete server install WITHOUT using the CD or diskettes. >Basically, I believe, NDS needs to be created on the server. I can >discern the LAN and DSK drivers required just to get an adapter up >for NDS and new volumes defined. I'm looking to get the server ready >to go with nothing but NDS on the SYS: volume. > >Is this realistic? Is my description clear? -------------- I would suggest a careful reading of the Novell NDS docs, dsdoc2.exe and dsmnt3.exe in directory updates\nwos\nw410 on ftp.novell.com and official mirrors. You apparently want the server back up within minutes; it won't happen. There is the DOS area, the basic NW o/s, the user files, the trustee rights etc, and then there is the NDS material. NDS isn't the bindery, local to that machine, and special steps are needed to put the server back into the tree. Further, your tape backups don't copy the leaf object numbers but only their names, so when things are put back together each name gets different numbers and you have all kinds of a mess. Plan A: duplex your disk system (separate drives, separate controllers). Have a spare machine into which these can be moved. MTR: under 20 minutes, half that if you just move the disk drives. Plan B: make do with what you have now. NW installation is quick and shorter than most file restores from tape. MTR: under two hours overall. Plan C: wait for NW 4.11 (aka Green River) where tape backup/ restores of NDS material will be coherent and safe. Due out late summer/ early fall, which probably means XMAS time. MTR: ?? Joe D. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Jun 1996 19:42:11 -0600 From: Joe Doupnik Subject: Re: Backup solution required (multiple tape devices) >Just wondering if anyone can help us here, we have a server (compaq) >with 9GB H/D and 7 is used. We are using Netware 4.1 with arcserve >4.02. On the server at the moment we have a wangdat 3200 which I >understand will only use 90m tapes. >There is a requirement to keep this as we have just merged two >companies and we are transfering data between netware 3.12 and this >server as users change locations. > >What I am after is an answer to how can I backup all of my volumes each >night. (Yes they want me to do a full backup). I need to keep this wangdat >tape device and I would like to add an exabyte 8500 as well. I am not sure >how I would go about having two tape devices attached with tapedrv >etc. > >The other option is to have a totally new backup solution but I need to >keep the compatibility between the sites. > >By the way, money is no option as we have plenty in the bucket. --------- I think that many of us would respond: purchase an HP DAT unit in its stack loader configuration. The DDS-2 mechanism runs fast, it compresses on the fly, and it's a reliable unit. When you can find 120M tapes they hold 4GB raw each, minimizing tape swapping. The stack loader then handles tapes for a longer backup cycle, days, plus a cleaning cartridge. Arcserve requires a separate stack loader module. Same-server backups with the HP DAT above run at about 30MB/min and up (depending on what's compressable). I would not place much faith in either the WangDAT nor the Exabyte unit. Joe D. --------- Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 08:47:27 -0500 From: David Lancaster Subject: Re: Backup solution required (multiple tape devices) -Reply Dear Joe D.: Gotta disagree with you on this one. We have run both HP DAT's (no auto loaders) and Exabyte 8 mm's for several years (as long as both products have been out). I have no experience with Exabyte DAT's. Our drives usually run several hours a night five nights a week. As you say, the HP DAT's are great drives, but the 8 mm's are more durable and faster. The DAT's usually need major service or replacement in a couple of years, but the Exabytes are like the battery bunny, they keep on going and going and going. We clean heads every 10 gb. or so. BTW, Exabyte has a new 8 mm drive that puts out 40 gb tapes with speed to match the capacity. It also has a mtbf approaching hard disk durability. According to Exabyte, the drive will read, but not write, all of the older 2 gb., 6 gb, etc. 8 mm tapes. Can't wait to try one out. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 15:51:40 GMT From: Joe Bologna <70544.2554@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Check Out "www.storagecafe.com" There is a new web site called StorageCafe. This site is dedicated to helping Admin's/User's find backup solutions. This site features information regarding backup software, tape drives and controller cards. This is still a new site and more is being added every week. URL = www.storagecafe.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 15:17:06 +0000 From: Michael Gaskin To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Cc: replica.support@stac.com Subject: Re: STAC Replica 2.1 - Memory issues >No solution to your problem but have you noticed how many outdated API >calls are made by REPLICA'S NLM's I am going to return my copies of Replica. The problem is when you span two tapes, the only way to restore a file is to mount the entire volume. Ugly! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 12:37:45 -0400 From: Rick Troha Subject: Re: DAT drive lifetimes... >This is interesting. Do you clean the drive with a cleaning tape or do >you physically clean it with cotton swabs and alcohol? Or is there a >combination of these? > >We have ours on a prventive maintenance plan that requires them to be >cleaned weekly with swabs and alcohol and once a month with a cleaning >tape. We don't seem to have problems with any of the drives if they are >kept clean. The reason we don't use the cleaning tapes more often is >because we don't want the abrasive action against the heads more than >necessary. Never use cotton swabs to clean a tape drive! They can leave those little fibers in your drive and cause problems. Every tape drive manufacturer will tell you to use FOAM swabs. I worked for Hewlett-Packard for 12 years as a Customer Engineer and I worked on more 9-track reel tape drives and DAT drives than I care to remember. In my experience, the number one cause of tape errors is customers who don't clean their drives often enough (or not at all!) The next greatest cause is cheap tapes. In the world of tapes, you get exactly what you pay for. Cheap tapes will have higher error rates than name brand tapes. They also leave more crud on the tape head. Buy high quality name brand tapes like 3-M and Sony. Isn't your data worth a couple of extra bucks (pounds, rubles, francs, etc.)? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 16:45:48 -0600 From: Joe Doupnik Subject: Re: DAT drive lifetimes... - Reply -Reply >Tough luck on that bad batch of tapes! And HP recommends that you use >only HP tapes in their drives, of course. We sometimes run Sony or >Verbatim tapes in the HP drives without problems, but usually stick to HP. > >I wonder what brand of tape Joe D uses in his HP drives. FWIW, someone >posted on this list recently that there are only 1 or 2 factories in >the whole world making 4mm DAT tapes, and all the OEMs just put their >own name on 'em. > >P.S. I had 2 HP DAT drives, less than 2 years old, fail within 2 months of >each other. But it may not have been all HP's fault, we had some >environmental problems. I took care of the environment, now we'll see >how long the new drives last. ---------- My turn, I gather. I use both Maxell and HP tapes, which I understand are really one and the same. They work fine. I have three DAT drives: an old Archive and two HPs. The Archive requires cleaning the mechanism with alcohol and a cotton swab (lint does not occur if the tip is just damp). The HP drives have used just standard dry cleaning tapes (same vendors as above), and require them often. The head cleaning tapes are useful, but the drive mechanism also requires cleaning. The particular part of the mechanism requiring careful attention is the drive capstan and its roller; scrub with the swab, damp only (not wet please). Brand new tapes are both dirty and noisy. Degauss them with a bulk tape eraser (Radio Shack) and use them once or twice casually before serious recording. Alternatively, do a full tape erase with your backup program. I've used some off brand "data grade" DAT tapes and found some work and others don't. That's not worth the grief to discover. Hence I stay with the two kinds noted above. DAT drives from HP and similar are not consumer grade electronics. They work well if kept clean and quality media are employed. Recall the limits on passes per tape from the vendor's instruction booklet. Joe D. --------- Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 17:00:53 -0600 From: Joe Doupnik Subject: Re: DAT drive lifetimes >On Mon 12 Aug, Joe Doupnik wrote: >> We hear your grumble, but some of us ask what's the real problem. >>For example: were the drives cleaned often (lots of folks neglect to do >>so), were the tapes of good quality (often not), did you turn off MRS >>recognition so that older tapes were accepted, did you degauss new tapes >>before use? > >We clean every fortnight (at least) using HP recommended cleaning tape. >We us HP tapes. >Looking at how to use standard DAT tapes on our Surestore 2000. >Degauss...how do you do that? > >Failure rate currently every third or fourth night the backup fails due to >dirty heads or bad tape. ------------ Assuming the "how do you do that?" was not rhetorical, here's why and how. Back in the days of "real computers" (defined as too large and heavy for people to pick up) we used reels of mag tape. Virgin tape is electrically noisy because the iron oxide material is still randomly organized. It is also physically dirty from dust and chips of the cutting process. We degauss the tape by passing it over an electrical transformer whose iron core has an opening (a gap), buzzing one side and then the other and always moving the tape far away before switching the power on/off. Never ever use a permanent magnet! Then we ran the tape through the mechanism at least once to wipe off the debris. After the first recording the tape is just broken in; a few more recordings brings it to prime shape for serious use. Heads and drive capstans were cleaned many times per day (say after a few reels), which is much more often than reported here for DAT drives. Degauss. Run the tape back and forth full length such as a full tape erase (cleans and brunishes, and electrically smooths at the same time). Radio Shack still makes tape degaussers, the bigger the better. Realize this is standard practice amongst professionals with extremely expensive tape drives ($26K per drive, typically, is what I paid for my last set fifteen years ago when money was still money). While your Coke(tm) may not need filtering because you eat it your tape system certainly does, and so does your motor vehicle. Joe D. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 08 Aug 96 20:39:53 -0600 From: Tony Sonderby To: netw4-l@bgu.edu Subject: STAC's Replica. Well, it seems I'll be looking for another backup solution besides STAC's Replica. Replica drops the cache from 77% to 62% after the first backup, then from 62% to 51% on the second. From there, it will remain steady, except for the appearance of short-term memory allocation errors, which eventually cause me to reset the server. Today, I mounted a 2.6GB tape volume, dropping us from 62% to 47% cache buffers, and took 4 hours to restore 18MB of files. Dismounting the tape volume put us back up to 59%. I'm getting tired of messing with it. Stac support suggested it's the server configuration, yet they said my settings seem fine. They also said that they suspect "some other process" running about the time the backup occurs. Replica is the only NLM(s) that we have other than Netware itself. We have 64MB, 2x4GBdrives(duplexed), 3.12/100 user (53 connections) Although the 'replication' method seems ideal for a disaster recovery, the time to restore files from a replicated volume is much too long for our needs. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Aug 1996 14:55:43 -0400 From: "J. Darren Lofthouse" Subject: Re: Mirroring information on different servers >I have two servers in different buildings and one runs 4.1 and the other >is 3.12. I haved shared drives on both systems and I want to have the >info synched between the two. So if someone adds something to one the >other will match. Is this possible? I've been looking for the same type of solution and the only one that I found to work quite well was found completely by accident. We have been using ArcServe 5 and recently upgraded to ArcServe 6. It includes a "Copy" option which allows you to copy volumes, directories, or files to another server. It also has a "Mirror Copy" option which will mirror volumes along with all the rights associated with those volumes. This includes deleting old directories/files from the "target" that have been removed from the "source". I have mine set up to mirror 2 different volumes to another server every morning at 5am. It usually only takes it about 10-15 min/vol to complete and seems to work very well. --------- Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 22:06:08 -0400 From: Glenn Fund Subject: Re: mirroring between servers >>I have two servers in different buildings and one runs 4.1 and the other >>is 3.12. I haved shared drives on both systems and I want to have the >>info synched between the two. So if someone adds something to one the >>other will match. Is this possible? Try NSI's Double-Take. It does 3.x and 4.x. Can do trustee rights and Bindery for 3.x. It just does changes, not whole files and it does open files too! Double-Take can do one to one or one to many severs. Very good price and excellent references too. (201) 804-8400... Ask for Yvonne Parkins. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 16:17:07 -0600 From: Joe Doupnik Subject: Re: SOS - Help Required in VREPAIR! >>We cannot afford a data loss as the backups are not updated. >> >>It seems that after running VREPAIR a lot of directory entries will be >>lost. Because of this we have been apprehensive of completing the >>VRepair process and terminated the process without writing the changes >>to disk. > >>Is there is any other software tool available to fix the above problem >>without or atleast minimium data loss? Can someone suggest any solution >>or refer to someone who can help us? > >I would use VREPAIR to correct the problem. ----------- There are lessons here. One of them is isolate volume sys: so that it carries only DOS name space. NetWare can crash or corrupt itself such that an operation is only partly completed, with one of several name spaces updated but not the others. It happens often enough here. Volume sys: is the most affected. Then Vrepair comes to the rescue, but it isn't perfect. At my place the NFS namespace is somehow inconsistent with the versions of vrepair and v_nfs (from all the NFS for NetWare plus Unix for NetWare material). When the server crashes I can't run vrepair on sys: without also removing NFS namespace on 2+GB of files (the anonymous ftp archive area, a royal pain). I'll change where those files live in due course. The DOS name space entries are retained even when the NFS entries are lost (no loss of files, just the alternative names for files). Yes, tape restoration to the rescue, Arcada's BackupExec in my case. Joe D. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Sep 1996 11:14:21 -0600 From: Joe Doupnik Subject: Re: Copying rights to new 3.12 server >I am helping a department move NetWare 3.12 and all their data onto a new >server. > >They have a 8mm Mountain tape drive hooked up to a workstation running >FileSafe for DOS. We did a complete backup of all of the volumes. This >software claims that it backups the bindery and rights on a NetWare file >server. > >I then installed NetWare from scratch on their new server on an isolated >network (they are using the same license). > >The first volume we restored was the SYS volume. We found that the files >were copied but not the bindery or rights. > >I ran BINDFIX twice on the old server then copied the .OLD files to the >new server and ran BINDREST to copy the bindery. > >Can anyone tell me how to copy the rights onto the new server? TIA. ------------- A DOS-only backup program is not sufficient to backup a NetWare file server. Not only does such a program miss trustee assignments it also misses the active bindery (for NW 2/3 servers), the NDS files (for NW 4), and volume restrictions and namespaces (for all versions). Leave such programs for DOS-only clients (with no long name spaces). To refresh minds on the matter: trustee rights are stored in the file system as part of the NW directory structure, not in NDS nor in the bindery. A NetWare-compatible backup program is needed access trustee rights and to deal with them properly. There are a number of very capable NW compliant tape backup programs on the market, almost all are server-based-backup schemes. The two most popular are Cheyenne's Arcserve and Arcada's BackupExec. Both offer free 30 day trials of the full product by accessing their ftp sites. Prices are not cheap, but they are worth their cost. Joe D. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 15:21:16 -0800 From: Mark Schoonover Subject: Re[2]: Appletlk.nlm 4.5 >>I'm trying to get Arcserv6 to back up Macs. I have the client agent, >>netware for macintosh, all nlm's which the manual says are required, BUT it >>doesn't work, it won't load the macserv6.nlm. >> >>Well I've held and held and held and gotten Cheyenne and they tell me it >>requires appletalk 4.5c or above. (even though the manual says 3.0 or above) >> >>I have appletlk 3.07h which is the latest I can find at Novell. >> >>Does anybody know where I can find appletlk 4.5 > >I have Appletlk 5.00f...which was installed with the macintosh patches >available from Novell's site. You should upgrade ALL your NLMs for the >mac before doing anything with Arcserve 6. For my $.02 worth -- don't expect the performace to be anything worth while. I tries the MAC agent on AS5, and it took nearly 3 hours to backup a 100 MBs! And that was on a quiet network. Essentially, we've just taught the users to save their files on the server, and drop the notion of backing up local disks. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Sep 1996 19:12:31 -0600 From: Joe Doupnik Subject: Re: Backup program. >I am looking for an inexpensive backup program that has to be able to: > >backup n 4.1 server volumes (not necessarily nds) >backup other workstation's local drives across the network (IPX) >Run on a workstation under windows 3.1 >Works with an Archive phython dat unit (internal 4mm) attached to a >Adaptec 15xx scsi controller. ---------- Those are tough specs to met at inexpensive prices. Might I suggest a long term cheapest dependable solution strategy? Abandon the requirement of a Windows based backup program. Instead put the backup program on the server where it belongs, and use the control program from Windows/Dos or the server itself. Good programs also backup clients across the net. Why is that cheapest? Because it does the Whole Job, not a piece, not just DOS name space, not just trustee rights (when you can get them), but binderies and NDS and name spaces and volume restrictions (not in bindery/nds but on the volume itself). That carries you forward some years with comfort. And it is fastest (remember how much disk space you wanted?). Spend the money wisely, once, etc. There are several well regarded products on the market satisfying these requirements. Two of the most popular are Cheyenne's Arcserve and Arcada's (now part of Seagate) BackupExec. The major players offer free 30-day evaluation copies, full product just time limited, across the net. Please shop around. Joe D. ------------------------------