Need some advice.
Like a lot of companies, we eventually needed something faster and more reliable than tape backup, so we went to an Iomega REV AutoLoader 1000, which used up to ten 35 MB (uncompressed) disk cartridges. Backup was a blazing 1 GB per minute, and the cartridges never needed retiring because they would never wear out, ever. The problem was the backup software, which still emulated tape. That means that the entire collection of files written to a cartridge was lumped together into a single huge file, and a separate set of files contained the indexes into this huge file to tell the backup software where to get the files for restoration. And then there was the backup media database to contend with. What we quickly found out was that every specific combination of primary storage hardware and software, backup storage hardware and software, and the backup software itself, is highly sensitive to the slightest change in the environment. So you may end up with lots of backup cartridges or tapes that cannot be restored without painstaking patches, etc, on a different machine (such as after the primary goes kaput). And when a primary device fails the last thing you need to be concerned with is hunting down backup software installation CDs, license keys, patches, and configuration notes. So we ended up retiring about $4,000 worth of NAS, REV autoloader, and backup software less than three years after we had purchased it, and moved to a file server using an internal RD1000 removable 300 GB data cartridge. It has the same 1 GB/min backup speed as the REV, and everything on the shared file server volume fits neatly on the one backup cartridge. We went ahead and purchased an additional external RD1000 drive to go into offsite storage for disaster recovery so we could rock-and-roll in case of a disaster. Now all we needed was backup software that didn't treat the backup medium as if it were tape. The whole idea was simple: backup all files directly to a removable disk that could be taken out of the file server and inserted into any other Windows computer with a USB port, and be back up and running immediately. No backup software needed to restore files -- no restoration, for that matter - just insert the cartridge and go. Problem was there was no product out there that would do this for us. As we went further and further into the problem, we understood why: there are a lot of details to something so seemingly simple as copying files. You can't just copy over the same destination media because erasures would remain and grow out of control, so you have to delete on the destination. But you can't just wipe it because it may contain other files, so you have to place an ID file on the destination volumes and check its content against a RegEx that validates the backup medium. And you have to log everything and gracefully exit on certain conditions and email the backup administrator, and on and on and on. And it had to do certain things: double-click on it, and it runs as a Windows Forms application with a GUI. Schedule it with a -nogui switch and it runs silently. Test things from the GUI before scheduling. Save your configuration, start and stop backups manually from the GUI, etc. So we built it ourselves. We call it "Back That NAS Up!" and we were thinking of selling it as a commercial product. It's really useful for us, so we thought others might find it useful, too. My question is, How do you think we should price this product? It would be priced by machine, but how much? It's very simple and very small, and you can be up and running in five minutes. But it makes a BIG difference in the strategy a company can use to greatly speed its disaster recovery times. Do any of you need something like this? I'll be happy to give out trial copies to see how people like it, and also give full commercial licenses to the first ten people who run it as a scheduled task for at least twenty days (we need to see how people use the product, and how they like it). Please contact me *OFFLIST* if you're interested in a copy, or if you have advice on pricing. Thanks in advance to everyone who gets involved. Respectfully, Adam Phillip Churvis President Productivity Enhancement ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;160198600;22374440;w Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:255438 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
