Please. This has been discussed so many times before on this list
that we don't need to hear it anymore. Time Machine is designed for
the home user. Period. To use it in a mission-critical, production,
environment is simply lunacy. Would you risk your paycheck on it? I
know I wouldn't.
My primary concern with using Time Machine for backup of a server to
do with the notification of when there is a problem and the
scalability of the system as you have to manage more servers.
I use LBackup for the backup of user data on Mac OS X. There are of
course a world of other backup alternatives available for Mac OS X
Server systems.
If you are backing up a single system then you can use the built in
email reporting functionally of LBackup. If you have 10 or more Mac OS
X Server systems that you mange the backup of, then you can use the
automated log checker which is available as an add-on from the LBackup
website to provide you with an overview of the backup status for all
of these systems. This allows you to quickly isolate any backup errors
which require your attention.
Most importantly, LBackup will allow you to backup over the network
via an SSH tunnel and in addition you can store the data in one or
more encrypted disk images on different media sets.
If you want to keep the data secure as it moves around the network and
once it is stored, then I recommend that you have a look at how this
can work for you in your situation. Many other backup tools also offer
encryption during network transmission and disk storage. However, many
of them use a proprietary system for encryption. LBackup will plug
into pretty much any encryption system which supports virtual file
systems such as TrueCrypt, PGP or on Mac OS X hdiutil. This is
possible because LBackup will not archive your data in any kind of
archive. Instead it creates a live snap shot tree which is
transparent. LBackup will not move your data into a proprietary
archive format unless you specifically configure it to do this
operation.
Your backup storage set can be on a DroboPro so that you can easily
rotate a set of backup disks of site. In addition, using a DroboPro
provides you with the option of dual disk redundancy for each of your
backup disk sets and if your storage requirements increase, you can
simply add some larger disks to the backup disk set and the Drobo will
automatically migrate your backup data to these new disks. This can
save you a great deal of time as your storage requirements increase.
Even if you are not using a Drobo as your storage system, LBackup
supports migration of your data to a different volume as your backup
storage requirements increase. This also means that if you start of
with an unencrypted backup you can migrate your data to an encrypted
file system at a later date or you can go the other way and migrate
your encrypted data set to an unencrypted file set.
Obviously, there is no backup solution that fits all situations.
However, LBackup is very flexible and fully supports Mac OS X systems.
Even though it is still very much a project under development, the
flexibility it affords is very nice.
The down side is that LBackup is more work to configure than Time
Machine. However, I think that such an investment for systems on which
you manage the backups is well worth while.
If I was using TimeMachine, I would not want the daily job of logging
into each machine that I backup with ARD to check if TimeMachine was
working correctly. There may be a way to script such checking of
TimeMachine backups. However, I am not aware of how to do this. Has
anyone worked this out?
All of that said, TimeMachine is a great backup system. I think it
absolutely fantastic that Apple has included a backup system into the
OS. However, TimeMachine is aimed at people who want a simple backup
with very few options. TimeMachine is ideal for people who have a
laptop and just want to purchase an external hard drive for $200.00,
plug this drive into the laptop and click a few buttons.
The downside of this simple setup which is very attractive is that
TimeMachine is not going to offer the features that other backup
systems offer simply because of how simple Apple want to keep
TimeMachine. It is aimed at quick and easy backups and I think that
for many home users it is very good that they have included this into
the OS. However, if your requirements are not meet by TimeMachine then
there are many alternatives available to you.
There are a variety of alternatives available for the backup of Mac
OSX Server systems. I think you should gather your requirements, try
some alternatives and then settle on something which meets as many of
your requirements as possible.
LBackup is released under the GNU GPL. As such you are allowed to
modify it to meet your specific requirements. It has no per seat
licenses and it uses rsync for the data transfer. The means that your
backup window is greatly reduced as you only need to move files across
the network which have been altered since the last successful backup
and that you can backup as mny systems as you like without having to
pay any additional licensee fees for the backup software for addition
systems you wish to add to your backup system.
In order to setup a secure network transfer with time machine you will
need to look at an AFP connection via an SSH tunnel. This makes such a
setup with TimeMachine quite complex. If you want your data to be
encrypted as it is transfered across the network, I would suggest at
least looking at LBackup, which only opens the SSH connection as
required.
In conclusion, if you are going to implement Backup of any kind, it is
a really good idea to specify requirements up front and then find a
solution which meets these requirements. I am sure that initially
TimeMachine will be very easy to setup. However, it may become complex
to manage as the number of systems you use it on increases in the long
term. There are many Backup solutions available for Mac OS X which
address the scaleability issues associated with the current version of
time machine. As you make your decision, think about the future and if
possible go with a solution that will scale to meet your future backup
requirements even if it means slightly more work in the short term.
I hope this information is helpful.
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Disclaimer :
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I am involved with the development of LBackup.
Sorry if this sounds a bit like an advert.
I just think that LBackup is a great system
because once it is up and running you can
easily identify any issues and then investigate
such issues and hopefully resolve them easily.
