I'm looking for suggestions on an easy to implement and easy to maintain backup solution.

I have the following servers to backup:

600gb Windows File & Application Server
800gb Linux Samba Server
800gb Linux Samba Server
400gb Windows Database Server
700gb Linux Mail Server

AMANDA looks like a good choice for backup software, but I don't know where to begin with hardware. I'm leaning toward a disk-based backup solution.

I've been asked to implement a system that does full backups each night (M-F).

I'm looking for suggestions on what might be my best option.

Also, I have a limited budget -- about $4K for hardware, software, and media.

Thanks,

rsync

Hmmm, difficult one. Are all those servers full, or nearly full? Ideally, you want an rsync based solution, and definitely you should be considering running virtualised servers, with failover, otherwise if a machine goes down, you are in big trouble!

I agree that a disk based solution is a good plan, however, I would definitely consider what way to organise my backups! For example, what way have you implemented your mail server? Is it possible that you can make a backup disk image of the server, which you would update every month or two, then backup your mail store daily?

Likewise for file servers, make an image of the setup, and only backup the directories which change regularly on a daily basis.

This strategy has worked very well for me, recently I had a situation where I tried to install admin software on one of my servers, which deleted everything I had created! By restoring the server using a spare HDD and disk image, then pulling all the home directories off the old HDD using tar, I was back up within about 3 hours, which is not bad considering I am on my own!

BTW, I would build in layers of backup if I were you, e.g., have a tape backup made offsite on a monthly / weekly basis, with complete disk images, over and above everything I have talked about above!

In terms of software, tar is command line, but IMHO, hard beaten. It is very configurable, you can backup over the network, and this is ideal for complete bare metal restore.

For regular changes, try using rsync, again it's very configurable, but if you get it setup well, it is very hard beaten. The trick is to create crontab scripts that run, say, every night, and incrementally backup changes.

AFAIW, none of this will work with Windows servers, but if you wanted to make incremental backups of a windows machine, take a look at winscp, it utilises rsync code, and is a reasonable solution.

The real trick is to sit down and decide what you need, imagine yourself in a situation where all has gone belly up. What would you need in that situation? Work back from there, and see what works for you.

Thanks for the advice. What virtualization software do yo recommend? To be honest, I've not done much with VMs before. I run VirtualBox on my home PC, but that's about it.

Also, I'm on a 100 MBps LAN. With tar or rsync, how long will backups of all these boxes take (assuming the capacities I've listed)?

About to hit the sack here, but VirtualBox is not a bad place to start, I use it quite a bit, mainly for home stuff. I have heard of many people using it as an alternative to VMWare. The great advantage with this approach over a hypervisor like XEN, is that you can mix and match OS's as you require, all on one machine!

The downside to using Amanda is it uses Samba. I'd go with Bacula. I setup a Bacula install at a previous employer with a mix of Linux and Windows systems that backed up to small NAS system.

I wouldn't bother with visualization just to implement backups. Bacula has a native windows client and you can backup directly from it without the need for Samba, NFS, etc.

As for the hardware, it all depends really how much you're willing to spend or what type of budget they're going to give you.

As for you're last question about speed, the first full backup will always take the longest. You should plan to do daily incrementals and then weekly differentials to offset the large data sets.

Usually in a month retention type setup, you would do the first FULL on the first Sunday of each month. Every day inbetween would be incrementals, but every Sunday for the remaining Sundays of the month, you'll do DIFF's from the initial FULL.

With 100MBps, should be fine. If possible, vlan the backup on their own LAN or switch to give better performance and not to interfere with other network traffic.