Response to Guy Smith's post on this thread:
We demo'd RR last year and had a pretty difficult time of it. I think RR's
command syntax is unnecessarily complex. They still don't support DLT on
MPE, AFAIK, and I see very little in the way of progress for enhancements
for RR/MPE - as an illustration, their web page for this product has not
been updated for quite some time, but the "open systems" products' pages
seem to be kept more current. I just received a mailing from them as a
result of a visit to their HP World '97 booth, and all they sent me was
info re: Unix versions of their products. <sigh>
Orbit's BackupPlus product has been used in our shop for several years,
now, with great success. They were first out of the blocks with DLT
support, and the product's performance is stellar - even more so, now that
restores from multiple tapes are supported. The one glaring flaw, IMHO, is
the risk of losing an entire backup if you somehow lose a directory tape.
This happened to us, and we're still reeling from it. :( Orbit cannot
help you recover data from tapes without a directory. Because of this,
we're now writing copies of the directory both to the last tape and to disk
files for all major backups.
In terms of performance numbers, we back up roughly 100 GB to three
DLT4000's in parallel on our production system - each on a dedicated
SE-SCSI controller - at a sustained throughput of about 30-33 GB/hour.
Prior to using DLT, we were backing up to 100+ 2400' reels - two 7980XC
drives in parallel - in just under 12 hours. Guy mentioned a startup
penalty having to read a directory tape; however, if the backup's directory
is on disk, that penalty is significantly lessened.
Restores from DLT are still a problem for copious quantities of data.
Reloading an entire system for disaster recovery testing, for example, has
never been successful the first time. Some large Image datasets do not
restore, and several attempts are required to get all the files restored.
Orbit's technical support quality usually depends upon the person you
reach. I and others on my staff have sometimes felt like our requests were
being blown off, and I have experienced rudeness on rare occasion - but
that's definitely not the norm. I assume they have bad days, too.
Lee Gunter
Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oregon / Regence HMO Oregon
mailto:[log in to unmask]
voice...503-375-4498
fax.....503-375-4401
==========================================================
The opinions expressed, here, are mine and mine alone, and do not
necessarily reflect those of my employer.
From: [log in to unmask] on 09/25/97 05:46 PM
Please respond to [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
cc: (bcc: Lee Gunter/BCBSO/TBG)
Subject: Re: unison software/road runner [long]
(Guy's eloquent response snipped, with regrets)
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