[Technical] Sonasoft?

[Con Zymaris]

On Mon, Aug 07, 2006 at 03:09:26PM +1000, Clark, Ian C wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: tech-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:tech-
> > > You mean your company developed this product without understanding
> > the
> > > concept of file locks?
> > 
> > No, as a coder who started on CP/M, I know the concept of enforced
> file
> > locks for general purpose apps. What _I'm_ asking is why are they
> still
> > necessary in 2006?
> 
> Then you still don't understand them. 
> 
> Any area of computing that has transactions (and it can be kernel
> processes or a web database) needs concurrency control.

For transactions, then yes, I agree. But for Word and Excel files? No.

...

> Did you read the article in the link I posted?
> 

I did.


> It's a weakness that has caused some to go their own way ... as the
> article says,  "the cooperative locking approach can lead to problems
> when a process writes to a file without obeying file locks set by other
> processes. For this reason, some UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems
> support mandatory locking as well."

And it's useful in certain circumstances. But why file-lock almost every 
file access?


> 
> > > > and you don't need special 'shims' to work around backup issues
> > with
> > > > Microsoft's SQL Server and Exchange.
> > >
> > > And Oracle, and DB2, and GroupWise, and Notes, and ... you get the
> > > picture ... no point demonizing Micro$oft for *their* enterprise
> > > database or collaboration system ...
> > 
> > And yet, these aren't needed for MySQL, PostreSQL etc. 
> 
> Of course they are! You can't just backup MySQL or PostgreSQL by copying
> the directories to your Cybersource "Datasafe" server! The archives can
> end up corrupted!
> 
> What if several records are halfway through being updated when the copy
> is made? 
> 
> What if the hard drive hasn't yet committed some writes to the database
> from its cache yet?
> 
> You need to use a shim like the mysqldump tool, or you need to lock and
> flush the tables first before doing a file level copy or shut down MySQL
> or PostgreSQL altogether!

Which is why, as I said in my original email, but you somehow managed to 
remove from your quoted response, the following:

 Sure, it's not advisable to do file backups on an active, 
 in-transaction server, but that's another story.


> 
> > Perhaps, NTbackup is free.
> > 
> > But add the costs of 3 * server hardware, 3 * Win2k3 server licences,
> 3
> > * CALs & 3 *installation and you get the picture. For 25 users, that's
> > $30k.
> > 
> > Do the costings and get back to me if you can get a cheaper quote ;-)
> 
> For 25 users, I couldn't recommend to clients your three server, $10,000
> solution that can't back up open files.
> 
> I would go with either:
> 
> 1) a single Win2k3 Small Business Server, say, from Dell. Hardware RAID
> for system, swap, programs and data partitions, and either removable USB
> disks or a tape drive so that backups can actually be taken offsite, so
> that when a fire hits the office and wipes out your "Datasafe" backup
> solution, the data is actually safe. With all the inbuilt wizards I'd be

And yet, most data loss happens when users do not do tape 
operations. Data loss also happens when users do not take tapes offsite. 
And how many of us have been at sites where these two are the major 
causes of data loss problems?

Sure, a Datasafe doesn't give you off-site backup (by default), but 
that's why you have a replicated server, stored offsite. Which is why I 
mentioned that, too.

What a Datasafe _does_ give you is an archive to every version of every 
document and (non SQL Server, non Exchange) datafile that you care 
about. And this happens automatically.

Do you have a cost estimate for:

 1. The cost of a tape drive that can hold say 400GB &
 2. The cost of 21 400GB tapes to hold a month's worth of backup?
 

> happy to go with a fixed price eight hour labour on the setup of server
> and client connections - $3000 plus $1000 equals $4000 total. $130 for
> each CAL after the fifth.

So, what's the total price on this server, including tapes & CALs?

And what happens if your server suffers boot-system failure? How easy is
it for Joe Average to do bare matal system recovery in such a scenario.

Sure, within a few days, or maybe a week or so, a replacemant/fixed 
server can be instantiated. What does the organisation do in the ensuing 
time? It's for this reason that the Replicator was built.

> 
> 2) Linux - same hardware for say $2500, CentOS (free). Offer a fixed
> twelve hour setup, for a $4000 total. Another $799USD ($AD 1000) to go
> with genuine Redhat instead.

But neither of these solutions gives you:

- long term document snapshotting, revisioning and archiving
- fast recovery from server failure
- automated backup
- automated offsite backup

all of which provide data protection and rapid data recovery, which is 
the problem we're looking to solve from the original email.


-- 
___________________________________________________________________________
Con Zymaris <conz at cyber.com.au> Level 4, 10 Queen St, Melbourne, Australia 
Cybersource: Australia's Leading Linux and Open Source Solutions Company 
Web: http://www.cyber.com.au/  Phone: 03 9621 2377   Fax: 03 9621 2477