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Hi Folks,

We have one iSeries (running QS36F stuff) and one Windows server (light use) making a decision on augmenting our tape backup with an internet backup. (The company is a food importer with about 15 users.)

Here are some thoughts so far.
Please feel free to enhance or correct.

The PC-environment services (Carbonite, Mozy, DriveHQ, etc) are doable only on a very rudimentary level for the iSeries, since they have no direct knowledge of iSeries files. They might be usable for the Windows Network but for the iSeries they would be awkward at best. (e.g Copy as SAVF from iSeries to network or IFDS and then do this and that. Restore would be less reliable than you would like)

There seem to be two software major players that are iSeries savvy, eVault (which has a Seagate heritage) and Asigra, out of Toronto, Asigra being more of a general (agentless) network backup that added iSeries functions, eVault being more native iSeries. The sense I have is that eVault may do a "better" job on iSeries, Asigra may do a "better" job on the PC network (e.g. it does not need to install software on each PC).

There are many iSeries backup/disaster recovery vendors which have many competing pluses and minuses, yet they all seem to have either eVault, Asigra or a hybrid combination (eVault for ISeries, Asigra for network). I would like to concentrate on the software decision.

One surprise I hit on Asigra is that they apparently have no native method of reading QS36F library, they are trying to work the API with IBM, and in the meantime they actually make a copy of all the files to a holding library and then backup the holding library. Presumably they do not lose any checksum/compression niceties in this semi-kludge method. Beyond that I was very pleased with the Asigra network in a play-time (which I have not had with the eVault).

So I was surprised by the lack of a direct API to QS36F, when I work with utility software like that of Linoma they seem to be able to handle it like any other library. On the other hand, in practical terms this may only mean two minutes more to the backup.

Overall, I am sure there are a dozen or so little aspects that I am not aware of. Clearly there are other factors in enterprise backup -- that does not apply to us but feel free to share away.

And our tape backups are quite solid, including taking off-site, so this is meant more for auxiliary than anything else -- minor restores will likely be few and far between, since we could use the tape and simply do not do a lot of restores.

Your thoughts and experiences ?

eVault, Asigra, hybrid of the two or other ?

Generally speaking the price ranges for a small backup service with these methods is between $100 to $150 a month, some higher, one or two lower, you can get into 25 Gigabtye levels and compression ratios and stuff -- but I know we will be the low-end.

Thanks.

Shalom,
Steven
Queens, NY


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