Hello, 18.09.2007 18:37,, Shaw Terwilliger wrote:: > I'm evaluating Bacula to replace both halves of our current backup > system, which works like this: > > - Each night dirvish collects incremental changes (via rsync) from > all the servers and puts them on a file server with lots of reliable > disk storage (online disk-based backups). Dirvish keeps hard-link > trees of the last few months of data from the servers (about 1 TB > total) on this server. These files are shared and users can browse > them to recover their own files, but this is not a requirement of a > new system. > > - On weekends, a single DLT tape captures a full backup of the latest > dirvish tree (tar). The tape is taken off-site and the "oldest" tape > from the off-site pool is put in. These tapes are for disaster > recovery and only hold full backups. > > Our full backups no longer fit on a single tape, so I'm looking at > buying an autochanger. I plan to let Bacula span data over the tapes > (volumes) in an "offsite" pool. I'm trying to understand how Bacula's > pools/volumes/labels will interact with my strategy for moving the > volumes in this pool off-site ASAP after the weekend (Monday). I've > never planned backups for an autochanger before. > > Let's assume I need 3 tapes for a full backup, run once each weekend. I > label 12 tapes (4 weeks worth) and put in tapes 1,2,3 for the first > weekend, and backups run. On Monday, if I remove 1,2,3 and put in > 4,5,6, and we assume 4,5,6 can be auto-recycled or are empty, will > Bacula complain when the weekend arrives and tape 3 (where it left off) > isn't there? Will it just use 4,5,6 and be happy? Can this pattern be > repeated indefinitely (until I replace old tapes with new ones)?
The simple solution is to set up your volumes so they are automatically closed after a given time, in your case a few days, after they were used. This is easy with Bacula. When removing tapes, you always have to inform Bacula of the change in tape availability, which is done by the 'update slots' command. So, given these considerations, your backup operations would be like this: - Load whatever usable tapes you have in the autochanger. - Use 'update slots' to inform Bacula of the tape inventory. - Let Bacula do its work. - Find the volumes to unload. - 'umount' to release the tapes and ensure Bacula doesn't want to operate the autochanger while you work at it. - Unload used tapes, load new ones - 'update slots' - 'mount' - Go up 6 steps, repeat. Most of this can be handled by a script. Drop me a line if you'd like to test what I have (not published, but also not exactly top secret). > My second topic has to do with migration. After installing Bacula 2.2.4 > and playing with it a bit, it seems my current strategy > (incremental/differential on-line disk backups with a full image copied > to tape regularly) can't be mimicked with a Migrate job--I would lose > the jobs and data from the disk-based backup pool when they migrated to > tape. Yes. > Is anyone else doing something like this with Bacula? You could continue with your dirvish backups and simply back up that repository using Bacula, which is not an unusual setup. Arno > --=20 > Shaw Terwilliger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > SourceGear LLC > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft > Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2005. > http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Bacula-users mailing list > Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users -- Arno Lehmann IT-Service Lehmann www.its-lehmann.de ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2005. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
