Re: How's amanda feeling these days?

On Sat, Sep 26, 2020 at 11:10:14AM -0600, Charles Curley wrote:
> So this is a "green field" installation as far as backup gear goes:
> backup servers, tape drives or hard drives for vtapes, network
> enhancements, etc., as needed. I have no doubt this crew can advise you
> well on all of that.

Good, that's exactly what I was hoping for!

The one thing you mentioned that's not in-scope for this is network
enhancements.  Connectivity is strictly the domain of campus data
services, but we've already got gigabit links in place between all
sites and can get a dedicated VLAN set up just for backups if necessary,
so I don't think there should be any problems in that area.

> However, paranoids live longer. Do not terminate your contract with the
> law school until you are getting good backups locally of everything you
> want to back up.

Oh, absolutely.  And, as was suggested earlier, migrating to the new
backup system server-by-server is definitely the way to go, rather than
flipping the switch on everything all at once.

> And a thought that probably does not sit well with the typical library
> budget: If necessary, spend the money to get good kit. It will save you
> trouble (and hence money) in the long run.

This, at least, is not an issue.  While I don't have an actual fixed
budget allocation to work with for this project, both the library as a
whole and the IT group specifically are sufficiently funded that I've
never had a problem with any kind of (justifiable) hardware purchases.
The sky isn't the limit, but I can almost certainly get whatever is
needed to do it right and I'm sure my boss is expecting this to run at
least US$10-15k in hardware.

-- 
Dave Sherohman