Data backup is the single most important function we perform as network administrators. It is, on the surface, also possibly the least impressive function. Individual backup software products may have lots of fancy features, but at bottom all they really do is chug along quietly in the background, humble workhorses that go unnoticed as they carry out their duties. That is, they're unnoticed until that fateful day when a server volume dismounts and mountains of valuable files seemingly disappear into thin air.
No scenario is more unsettling. When it happens, an administrator who has a reliable product and a solid backup scheme becomes the resident superhero for his or her enterprise. One who does not had better start practicing the phrase, "Would you like fries with that?"
We put four enterprise-backup products through their paces at our labs in Savannah, Ga. Veritas Software Corp. Veritas Backup Exec 8.0 for Microsoft Windows NT/2000 won our Editor's Choice award, despite having some areas that need improvement and encountering a nasty device driver-application conflict. Its user-friendly interface allows for detailed tweaking of jobs, and it offers solid reporting functions, automatic client discovery and a speedy backup of data across the wire. Computer Associates ArcServeIT 6.61 Advanced Edition for Windows NT placed second, followed by Legato Systems Legato NetWorker 5 and Hicomp Software Systems Hiback and Hibars.
We contacted some other big enterprise backup players that, for one reason or another, did not participate in our tests. Hewlett-Packard Co. and IBM Corp. decided not to send their products for evaluation, with no explanation provided. Other companies offered great-looking backup solutions that combined software and hardware, but for this article we focused only on software.
The products we tested are a diverse lot, each approaching the needs of the administrator in a different way. Because the desire for data backup is universal, however, it is important to provide functionality and reliability along with an interface suitable for administrators of varying levels of experience. Flexibility is necessary as well--administrators must be able to edit existing jobs and reconfigure their setups quickly and easily when circumstances dictate. Finally, a good product should be able to cope with the diversity of a heterogenous network environment.
Our minienterprise included a backup server running Microsoft Windows NT and clients installed on machines running Novell IntranetWare 4.11, Red Hat Linux, SCO UnixWare and Windows 98. We used a Tandberg Data SLR100 as our tape drive, though administrators who are responsible for backing up any decent-sized enterprise would be wise to invest in a tape library. Increasingly, enterprise backup products are designed for optimal use with a tape library, and the advantages of a truly automated backup solution cannot be emphasized enough.
We chose Windows NT as our server platform because most backup vendors focus on NT solutions in their promotional materials. Doubtless, this is a result of the increasing number of companies both large and small that are just starting to invest in a serious backup strategy for their data and the ubiquity of the NT OS. The largest enterprises may wish to consider a Unix-based solution, and we have included the supported options provided by the vendors in our features chart.
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