Looking for an "intelligent" backup feature - any ideas?

Hi all,

I'm looking for an archiving product with a specific feature that I'm
not sure is currently available.

I wish to create daily backups for an entire department - about 100
workstations with 50GB HD each, most are used by software developers.
I wish to backup entire PC and not open place for mistakes by letting
the end-users decide what is backed up.

Is there a backup product that can buckup all those files in less than
5TB per snapshot, by not storing similar files used by different
people? Many of the data files are replicated in different people HDs,
not to mention we all run the same Windows version, so not replicating
the OS files is an immediate gain…

Of course data compression, and partial disk usage will lower the
needed capacity, but I'm still interested in a solution that would
take into account the fact that "checked out" source trees, for
example, are mostly identical on different HDs of different software
developers, so backing up identical data only once and index it
somehow will take less space.

Another question is what is the common solution for this scenario?
Using tapes for a weekly archive and daily incremental backups?
I would really hope for a solution that will give me a direct access
to my stored data.

Thanks for any information you can share!

are the workstations Windows boxes? I heard the product from Connected Corp
is good http://www.connected.com/
-G
"Oren" wrote in message
om...
Hi all,

I'm looking for an archiving product with a specific feature that I'm
not sure is currently available.

I wish to create daily backups for an entire department - about 100
workstations with 50GB HD each, most are used by software developers.
I wish to backup entire PC and not open place for mistakes by letting
the end-users decide what is backed up.

Is there a backup product that can buckup all those files in less than
5TB per snapshot, by not storing similar files used by different
people? Many of the data files are replicated in different people HDs,
not to mention we all run the same Windows version, so not replicating
the OS files is an immediate gain.

Of course data compression, and partial disk usage will lower the
needed capacity, but I'm still interested in a solution that would
take into account the fact that "checked out" source trees, for
example, are mostly identical on different HDs of different software
developers, so backing up identical data only once and index it
somehow will take less space.

Another question is what is the common solution for this scenario?
Using tapes for a weekly archive and daily incremental backups?
I would really hope for a solution that will give me a direct access
to my stored data.

Thanks for any information you can share!

http://sourceforge.net/projects/backuppc/

"Oren" wrote in message
om...
Hi all,

I'm looking for an archiving product with a specific feature that I'm
not sure is currently available.

I wish to create daily backups for an entire department - about 100
workstations with 50GB HD each, most are used by software developers.
I wish to backup entire PC and not open place for mistakes by letting
the end-users decide what is backed up.

Is there a backup product that can buckup all those files in less than
5TB per snapshot, by not storing similar files used by different
people? Many of the data files are replicated in different people HDs,
not to mention we all run the same Windows version, so not replicating
the OS files is an immediate gain.

Of course data compression, and partial disk usage will lower the
needed capacity, but I'm still interested in a solution that would
take into account the fact that "checked out" source trees, for
example, are mostly identical on different HDs of different software
developers, so backing up identical data only once and index it
somehow will take less space.

Another question is what is the common solution for this scenario?
Using tapes for a weekly archive and daily incremental backups?
I would really hope for a solution that will give me a direct access
to my stored data.

Thanks for any information you can share!

In article ,
(Oren) writes:
| Hi all,
|
| I'm looking for an archiving product with a specific feature that I'm
| not sure is currently available.
|
| I wish to create daily backups for an entire department - about 100
| workstations with 50GB HD each, most are used by software developers.
| I wish to backup entire PC and not open place for mistakes by letting
| the end-users decide what is backed up.
|
| Is there a backup product that can buckup all those files in less than
| 5TB per snapshot, by not storing similar files used by different
| people? Many of the data files are replicated in different people HDs,
| not to mention we all run the same Windows version, so not replicating
| the OS files is an immediate gain…
|
| Of course data compression, and partial disk usage will lower the
| needed capacity, but I'm still interested in a solution that would
| take into account the fact that "checked out" source trees, for
| example, are mostly identical on different HDs of different software
| developers, so backing up identical data only once and index it
| somehow will take less space.
|
| Another question is what is the common solution for this scenario?
| Using tapes for a weekly archive and daily incremental backups?
| I would really hope for a solution that will give me a direct access
| to my stored data.

DataProtector from Connected can do this. It uses content addressable
storage to keep only one copy of replicated files.
http://www.connected.com/