[OpenAFS] backup solutions

[Ben Staffin]

* Kurt A. Seiffert <seiffert@indiana.edu> [2005-02-18 21:13] wibbled:
> We are considering creating a very large OpenAFS cell. We are looking to 
> replace our current DCE/DFS cell. That currently has about 50,000 
> accounts with 1.3TB of data.
> 
> We are not sure if the new AFS cell will hold quite as many users, but 
> the lower working number is 10,000 accounts with about 40TB of space.
> 
> I'm concerned about backups solutions. If we assume an 8 hour backup 
> window, our estimated backup rate has to be about 57GB/min.  We can look 
> at some things like dividing our space into 7 backup blocks and spread 
> the full backups throughout the week interleaving the incrementals for 
> the other blocks. But we still get a rate of about 16GB/min. This is 
> also the floor estimate. The ceiling estimates climb to about 241GB/min.
> 
> Does anyone have any advice for backup solutions for this much AFS data?
> 
> Any other general advice or thoughts would be appriciated as well.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> -KAS

I don't have the first-hand knowledge necessary to answer your question
confidently, but I expect that Tivoli Storage Manager in an arrangement
similar to what's in use on the UIUC campus could handle your
requirements.  The AIX TSM client can do file-level incremental backups
of AFS volumes, which is how we back up the acm.uiuc.edu cell.  We only
back up a few hundred gigabytes of AFS data, but the campus TSM system
backs up many terabytes of data daily.

http://adsm0.cso.uiuc.edu/ has some information about the TSM rig UIUC
uses.

Bob Booth (booth@uiuc.edu) would be more useful than I to talk to if you
want more information about the system.

-- 
/--
| Ben Staffin
  perpetual nerd  |
                --/