Re: How's amanda feeling these days?

At Fri, 25 Sep 2020 08:19:58 -0500 Dave Sherohman <[email protected]> wrote:

> 
> Howdy, all!
> 
> We've recently had some problems at work with our backup provider, so my
> boss has come to me and requested a recommendation for bringing backups
> in-house.  I've previously adminned a small amanda installation back in
> 2000-2006 and I quite liked the system and how it works, so that was my
> first thought.
> 
> I've done some general web searches and it looks like the situation
> today isn't as good as it was a decade and a half ago - not a lot of
> active development, limited support for Windows clients, etc.  But, on
> the other hand, amanda was already a very mature system back then, so I
> don't know that a lot of ongoing development would still be needed.

Yes, it is quite mature.

> 
> So let's see what the current users have to say.  Is a new amanda
> installation still a sane choice in 2020?

Yes, at least for a Linux network. I have very minimual experience with 
MS-Windows.  The only MS-Windows system I have experience with is a VM on a 
Linux machine using LVM, so I just create a LVM snapshop and then do a raw 
"disk" backup, but only even few months -- the MS-Windows system is only used 
twice a year to interface with an HVAC system.

> 
> My use case is that I'll be backing up somewhere in the neighborhood of
> 75ish servers, a mix of physical and (mostly) virtual machines, and a
> mix of mostly Linux with some Windows and one or two FreeBSD.  Total
> disk usage is currently in the 35-40 TB range, growing by maybe 1-2 TB
> per year.  Aside from my own positive experiences with amanda, both I
> and my boss (and most of my coworkers) are very pro-open-source.
> 
> If amanda isn't a reasonable choice for that scenario, what would be a
> better option?
> 
> And what kind of hardware specs should I be looking at?  Is tape still
> king, or is everyone backing up to hard drives now?
> 

-- 
Robert Heller             -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
Deepwoods Software        -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Linux Administration Services
[email protected]       -- Webhosting Services