[BBLISA] dump or Legato Networker?

[John Stoffel]

Michael> I agree. Now I'm hoping some propeller-head type figures out
Michael> a "scheme" for performing backups to WORM media. We're all
Michael> familiar with (what I believe is called) the towers of hanoi
Michael> approach which seems to have been created with the
Michael> characteristics of tape media in mind.

It's already been done actually.  Using WORM media isn't any different
from using any other type of media which has an infinite retention
policy.  It's just that the media enforces it.  :]

The big issue with WORM media is the sheer cost of the media, and the
need to shuffle lots of pieces of media just to backup one regular
sized harddisk.

I know people use Bacula to backup to DVD, but they must be shuffling
discs like crazy, or they have a DVD autoloader/jukebox type thing.
Or they only backup a subset of their data.  

Me, I'm lazy and careless so I backup all my data, it's just simpler
to not worry about.  

Michael> What I've been trying to sort out is what you do when you
Michael> can't reuse your media. I can do a backup to disk as a daily
Michael> but does doing backups of that to WORM make any sense? This
Michael> is a puzzle for better brains than mine.

Sure, backups to WORM makes sense if you're in an industry which
requires your backups to NOT be changeable, or in my mind, your
*archives* cannot be changed once they are written.  

EMC and NetApp both sell products to the financial industry which
allows you to make a backup and then lock it, so it can't be changed.
Of course this means they sell lots of disks and lots of expensive
licenses to manage all this.  Whee!

For a home user... WORM can be ok, but again you need to understand
the lifetime limitations, as well as the difference between an archive
and a backup.

Most people consider a backup to be an archive.  And it's not.
Archives are forever and unchanging.  Backups are for a defined set of
time, and can (should?) be recycled.  These days, with lawsuits and
such, alot of businesses are either making backup retentions quite
short and automatic, or they go to the other extreme and are keeping
them for a *really* long time.

John