[CLUE-Tech] Tape backup logistics

[Dan Harris]

I've done a lot of switching of servers recently and have found the need to 
rethink my backup strategy.

Here's my situation...  My main file server has a 40GB DLT drive in it.  My 
web server has no tape drive.  I also have a Crystal Reports (windows box) 
server with no tape drive.  I'd like to back up all three servers onto the 
tape drive in the main file server.

My current solution is this:

1 - copy all the important files through a samba mount from the windows box to 
/usr/backup on the main server by running a 'cp' on the main file server
2 - use a tar pipe through rsh into the web server and then capture the tar to 
a local file in /usr/backup
3 - use 'dump' to write all the local filesystems to the DLT

The problems I'm having with this situation:
- temporary storage of the tar files is much bigger than I'd like it to be ( 
tens of gigabytes ).  
- i tried piping the tar files through bzip2 and gzip on the fly but then it 
takes a LOOONG time to generate the local files, and exceeds my 'window' of 
time allowed for backups.  Even without compression, it takes way too long

I've scoured the web and it looked like AMANDA had all the features I needed, 
however it almost drove me to tears trying to get it configured.  The 
configuration files are beyond what a sane person would want to put up with.  
I gave up after about 12 hours of futzing with it.

I think if I could use dump to at least backup directly from the web server it 
would solve my immediate problem.  The files from the windows box are only 
200 megs or so which I can handle with a tar file.  I just wanted to see if 
there was some really nice tool I've been overlooking that would make this 
easy.

Thanks for any advice..

-Dan