Re: [SLUG] Arkeia no go - any other backup solutions?

[Terry Collins <terryc@nospam.woa.com.au>]

Rick Welykochy wrote:
> 
> We've toiled and struggled with Arkeia for years, and it has
> backed up, albeit only on occasion.

That is alas the nature of Arkeia. If it installs and works it is
great, marvellous, fantastic. If it doesn't it is the meanest, foul
SOB in the world. Whilst everything is configurable, finding out
exactly where and how is bloody hopeless despite it's pile of doco.

Again http://www.woa.com.au/linuc/reports/backup/linuxbackup.html has
some feedback on it.

For others who are interested - As well as the 30day trial of the
Professional version (does everything, but still won't schedule), they
also have a 'free' server + 2 client version, which would probably
suit most SOHO stuff.

Speaking generally, if you have a 100Mb/sec network and restricted
backup window, then Arkeia is probably the way to go as it will suck
multiple clients (<=8) concurrently (thrashes my 10mb/sec hub based
network on 4 clients).

> 
> About four months ago, their software went ballistic when we installed
> new versions of Linux, and we haven't been able to backup since.
> We've already spent lotsa $$$ on the their (expletive deleted) software.

My initial install attempt was on a Caldera OL1.3 and $%^&* was my
response too. Knox did tell me to use a different lib version, which
fixed the problem. This wasn't in the doco and the error message was
kind cryptic.

For my recent retest, I've had to do a bit of fiddling. but nothing
major apart from a couple of reinstalls, which is easier than trying
to edit the text files.


> 
> Of late, their offer of "help" has been
> (a) we've never heard of you - buy a new licence; and
> (b) [after waiting months] okay, found you - pay us another $880.00
>     for an "upgrade"

It is expensive enough upfront. It was going to cost me about
$US1,000+ for 1 Linux server, with 3Linux, 1 Novell, 1NT and 1 Win95
clients with extra for two Os/2 clients, but they didn't know how long
the OS/2 client software was going to be (they have since decided not
to produce it).

An upgrade fee of $880 is really out of my league and says that
licensing Arkeia is really only for the big iron end of town.

 
> As you can imagine, we're over it and need another backup solution.
> Any suggestions from slug, other than tarring to a raw tape drive?

I don't yet know of any other enterprise backup software for linux,
but I would like to if anyone does know.


--
   Terry Collins {:-)}}} Ph(02) 4627 2186 Fax(02) 4628 7861  
   email: terryc@nospam.woa.com.au  www: http://www.woa.com.au  
       or terryc@nospam.zip.net.au 
   WOA Computer Services <lan/wan, linux/unix, novell>
   snail:  PO Box 1047, Campbelltown, NSW 2560.

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