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  Enterpri se Backup Software That Keeps Your Data Afloat We were extremely impressed with the performance increase we detected when the Image option for ARCserve for Windows NT was used in conjunction with local backups. In addition, the Image backup option recorded the individual files into the database and performed file-by-file restores. However, Cheyenne does not yet have an Image option for ARCserve for NetWare or ARCserve/Open for Unix. A separate Cheyenne product performs Image-based backups under NetWare, but it is not compatible with ARCserve for NetWare.
Legato Systems NetWorker
However, NetWorker didn't provide a very comprehensive list of options and database agents for its NetWare and Windows NT platforms. Legato didn't have an NT SQL or Exchange database agent available for our testing, but these should be available by the time you read this. All NetWorker clients are push agents, and thus can initiate their own backup and restore requests. Another feature we particularly liked was NetWorker's ability to manage NetWorker hosts from other platforms. NetWorker is an excellent enterprise backup product, but it's rather expensive. What's more, Legato required the purchase of two separate products for NetWare 3.12 and NetWare 4.1x, whereas both Cheyenne and Seagate support both versions of NetWare from a single box. We didn't like the look and feel of the user i nterface on either the Windows or Windows NT client or administrator, despite its ease of use, functionality and similarity across platforms. The Windows NT product lacked support for non-Intel hardware platforms, such as Alpha, MIPS and PowerPC. We did like Legato's documentation on disaster recovery, though. Legato includes the recovery procedures for NetWare, Windows NT and Unix in a small manual with easy-to-follow instructions.
IBM ADSM
ADSM was designed to enable each remote client (based on NOS security) to initiate backups and restores of its node, as well as have a centrally administered storage policy enforced. ADSM uses an "incremental forever" approach to backups, rather than a more traditional tape-rotation method, to minimize network traffic for remote clients. An additional utility allows for tape media reclamation and consolidation. We believe ADSM is probably overkill for smaller networks because its strength lies in enterprise storage management, not just backups. IBM supports its HSM product in the Unix environment, but ADSM doesn't come in a native NetWare solution, reflecting IBM's focus on the Unix and Windows NT platforms. We encountered a few small problems with defining tape devices during the initial installation under Windows NT, and we were a little disappointed in the setup and user interface: We had to issue a number of installation and configuration commands from the command line, instead of relying on an easy-to-use GUI interface. IBM did provide a patch for this that adds a few more wizards for setup and configuration. The pat ch we used in our tests also fixed the problems we ran into during installation. All of ADSM's remote client agents are push agents optimized for network backups. The administration client is available on most platforms supported by the many ADSM clients. ADSM lacked Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) support for network management integration, but IBM says it plans to add this to future revisions of the ADSM product lines. ADSM does work with IBM's Tivoli Management Environment (TME) systems management software.
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Legato sells NetWorker versions for NetWare, W
indows NT, AIX, HP-UX and Solaris. The company also has OEM relationships for several other Unix platforms. Legato enjoys a strong presence in the Unix environment and offers a good number of remote client agents.
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by Bruce Bordman Updated March 7, 1997 |
