Unix Backup and Recovery

Data Requiring Special Treatment

All commercial backup products can back up normal filesystem data. However, there is a lot of data that does not reside in a normal filesystem. Some data does reside in a filesystem but still requires special treatment before it can be backed up. Find out how the product that you are considering handles data such as this:

Network-mounted filesystems

It is sometimes necessary to back up data that resides on a disk that is mounted from another machine.

Data that needs a custom script to back it up

Some types of data fall in between “normal” filesystem data and database data. If this data is created by a special utility, that utility must be shut off prior to running the backup.

Relational Database (RDBMS) data

Although some RDBMS data can be backed up using shutdown/startup scripts, there is now a much better way to back up most commercial database products.

The following sections discuss these three needs.

Network-Mounted Filesystems

Why would anyone want to back up via NFS? In almost every shop, there is a client that is not supported by commercial backup software. Perhaps it’s an older operating system that is no longer supported. Perhaps the software vendors aren’t convinced that the operating system has enough market share. (Remember that these vendors aren’t in this for free.) What good does it do to port your software to a platform that no one is using?

One solution to back up such a client would be to NFS-mount its filesystems to the backup server ...