What Is NetBackup?
NetBackup is made to be a secondary line of defense against data loss. It is designed to copy critical data files and/or directories from one computer (usually a file or data server) to another on a LAN at a specified time each day. You can also use NetBackup on a standalone PC with multiple hard drives.
NetBackup is NOT designed to replace your tape drive completely. Again, NetBackup is a secondary backup utility to work in conjunction with a tape drive. You should not rely on NetBackup to safeguard your data. Make regular nightly backups with your tape drive. Use NetBackup for EXTRA security.
Why Use NetBackup?
NetBackup is designed to compliment your regular tape drive schedule. Whether you don't have software that allows you to run a nightly backup event, or you are in a work environment that doesn't allow full nightly backups (or, like me, you're just too darn lazy), NetBackup can quickly and easily copy those "critical" files to a second hard drive on your LAN, or even a second drive in your PC, just in case the primary drive dies.
One December morning, not too long ago, I came into my office to find my computer locked up. After rebooting my machine, I heard a strange "click click click" noise coming from my PC. Being somewhat of a hardware technician myself (yes, even us programmers know a little bit about hardware), it sounded to me like the hard drive crashed. So, I tried a few things - including putting the drive in a different computer. No luck. The drive was smoked.
"No problem," I told myself. "I've got backups." So, I pulled out my handy little box of tapes. Problem: the last tape backup that I ran was over three weeks ago. This is not good. I can't lose over 3 weeks of data. All of my accounting and customer information was on that hard drive.
"Well," I figured, "at least I have my network backup copies." I had a little batch file that ran every time I clicked on a little icon to copy all of my critical data - including my database - to several different drives across the network. Guess what: for some strange reason, none of the network backups worked. Apparently, the source drive filled up, and the batch file wasn't able to make a copy of the database.
PANIC FOLLOWED
I finally sent the hard drive to a data recovery house. They informed me that it would be between $500 and $3200 to recover the data - IF it was possible. In addition, it could take anywhere from 3 to 6 business days to get my data back. The first data recovery company said the drive was "too badly damaged" to restore any data. We're sending it out for a second opinion, but it doesn't look good.
This is why I wrote NetBackup. I know that, like me, there are many other people out there who have tape drives, but don't run them regularly enough (or don't have an automated tape backup schedule running). Trust me, I was someone who thought that it could NEVER happen to me - and it did. We lost a good deal of information to a hard drive crash because I thought we were protected enough.
You can never be protected enough! Even if you have a tape drive, you should still use NetBackup for your critical data as a second line of defense. You'll thank me. (And, yes, we were able to recover our information - but it required lots of typing from our paper backups.)
