Title: Commercial backup programs for Linux

KBTAG: kben10000051
URL: http://www.securityportal.com/lskb/10000050/kben10000051.html
Date created: 03/07/2000
Date modified:
Date removed:
Authors(s): Kurt Seifried seifried@securityportal.com
Topic: Commercial backup programs for Linux
Keywords: System/Backup, Software/Backup

Summary:

I don't know how many times I can tell people, but it never ceases to amaze me how often people are surprised by the fact that if they do not backup their data it will be gone, if the drive suffers a head crash on them or they hit 'delete' without thinking. Always backup your system, even if it's just the config files, you'll save yourself time and money in the long run.

More information:

BRU

BRU (Backup and Restore Utility), has been in the Linux world since as long as Linux Journal (they have had ads in there since the beginning as far as I can tell). This program affords a relatively complete set of tools in a nice unified format, with command line and a graphical front end (easy to automate in other words). It supports full, incremental and differential backups, as well as catalogs, and can write to a file or tape drive, basically a solid, simple, easy to use backup program. BRU is available at http://www.estinc.com/features.html.

Quickstart

Quickstart is more aimed at making an image of the system so that when the hard drive fails/etc. you can quickly re-image a blank disk and have a working system. It can also be used to 'master' a system and then load other systems quickly (as an alternative to say Red Hat's kickstart). It's reasonably priced as well and garnered a good revue in Linux Journal (Nov 1998, page 50). You can get it at: http://www.estinc.com/qsdr.html.

Backup Professional

http://www.unitrends.com/bp.html

CTAR

http://www.unitrends.com/ctar.html

CTAR:NET

http://www.unitrends.com/ctarnet.html

PC ParaChute

http://www.unitrends.com/pcpara.html

Arkeia

Arkeia is a very powerful backup program with a client - server architecture that supports many platforms. This is an 'industrial' strength product and appropriate for heterogeneous environments, it was reviewed in Linux Journal (April 1999, page 38) and you can download a shareware version online and give it a try, the URL is: http://www.arkeia.com/.

Legato Networker

Legato Networker is another enterprise class backup program, with freely available (but unsupported) Linux clients. Legato Networker is available at: http://www.legato.com/Products/html/legato_networker.html and the Linux clients are available from: ftp://ftp.legato.com/pub/Unsupported/Linux_Client/.

Perfect Backup

Perfect Backup supports almost all Linux distributions and has crash recovery. You can get it from: http://www.merlinsoftech.com/nonflash/merlinhome.htm.