[kwlug-disc] Open source backup tools

[B.S.]

----- Original Message -----

> From: Paul Nijjar <paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca>
> To: KWLUG discussion <kwlug-disc at kwlug.org>
> Sent: Friday, December 4, 2015 3:16 PM
> Subject: Re: [kwlug-disc] Open source backup tools
> 
> On Fri, Dec 04, 2015 at 07:39:03PM +0000, B.S. wrote:
>> 
>>  Can you clarify:
>> 
>>  > - Microsoft Exchange 2010!
>> 
>> 
>>  I expect only MS solutions are going to understand Exchange - are you 
> willing to shut down exchange to back it up? Are you willing to move off 
> Exchange to the Linux equivalent (which would let you use corresponding backup 
> programs)?
>> 
> 
> My question was "Are there FLOSS ways to back up the infrastructure I
> already have", not "Should I switch our entire infrastructure to
> Linux?". 
> 
> Rebooting/shutting down Exchange or anything else to do backups is a
> non-starter. Any backups that are not automated do not happen.


(I didn't suggest rebooting, nor non-automated. IIRC, there are Exchange internals whereby you can hold the database at 2am long enough to take a file system backup via other tools. Let alone, as said, Exchange clusters/sync whereby you could instead down a tertiary archive server long enough to do the same, leaving the prime delivering 24x7 service.)

I think you are at least partially misunderstanding what I'm saying. To be brief ...

If there were a FOSS solution out there that you would trust / meets your criteria, you would already have found it from the googling you will no doubt have already done. (Given the costs involved, Exchange being a proprietary commercial system meaning proprietary commercial backup solutions, organization size inherent to Exchange use, such organizations desiring a sufficient liability attack surface should it be needed, and so on.)

That you haven't found such tells you everything. That your current solution, despite its inadequacies, has no ready competition demonstrates the barriers to, and lack of, a market. Now, or in the foreseeable future. This is no new problem.

So skin the cat in a different way.

e.g. IIRC, there are FOSS alternatives out there that to the user presents itself no differently than Exchange in any way meaningful to them - inherently accompanied by a larger FOSS tool / backup environment. A quick google of 'FOSS alternative to Exchange' reveals articles such as http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/slideshows/top-5-open-source-alternatives-to-microsoft-exchange.html . I want to say Albion comes to mind, but a quick google reveals that that isn't right. Perhaps I'm thinking of Alfresco.

So, if you haven't already found a solution to your taste - do you have any choice but to skin the cat in a different way / look at the problem/solutions from a different perspective?

If the problem is Exchange, is trying to put lipstick on the pig the optimal solution, or do you try to change the animal?

Your issue with Exchange is by no means unique, for many people for a very long time - if a mass acceptable solution were out there you would have found it. So perhaps you need to consider the solution those same people arrived at: live with it, or change the animal. Skinning the cat in a different way.

If there is no evident (and you inherently wouldn't trust the non-evident) solution to the problem you are trying to solve - isn't it time to attack the problem from a different vector?