Digital UNIX System Administrator's Guide
Tru64 UNIX (a.k.a. Digital UNIX) system administration for beginners.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Digital UNIX System Administrator's Guide
Chapter 10: Backups
10.1 SYSTEM BACKUPS
System backups are often a neglected or completely overlooked function on all too many UNIX systems. The reasons for this are many and varied. Many novice system administrators are simply unfamiliar with the variety of backup utilities available, while more experienced administrators may consider backups to be "grunt" work. In other cases, backups are not a priority with management or users until, of course, the inevitable occurs and data or files are lost. Statistics have shown that most companies that are unable to recover quickly from a data loss often never recover. The key to preventing this situation is developing and implementing a backup strategy. In this chapter I will present guidelines for developing your own backup strategy. Following that, the various backup tools and utilities provided on Digital UNIX systems will be discussed. I will focus on those utilities that are part of the base Digital UNIX product, but I will briefly mention several alternative backup solutions.
10.2 BACKUP STRATEGY
Backups on a Digital UNIX system must be more than an occasional file system dump off to a tape. Developing an effective backup strategy is an important responsibility for a Digital UNIX system administrator. Such a backup plan must take into account the type of data to be backed up, how frequently the data should be saved, or more importantly, how much data can afford to be lost, the amount of time available for the backup operation itself, and the tools available. Finally, backing up...
Copyright Butterworth-Heinemann 1999 under license agreement with Books24x7
