Backup Software for Your Network

Pick the software that has the functionalityand features you need

Curious about which backup software has the features and the functionality that are right for your network? Welcome to the Windows NT Magazine Lab's backup software reviews. We put four backup software products through the wringer to see what they can do and what they can't do. (For information about how I tested these packages, see "The Lab's Test Configuration," page 88.) In each package, I found a trace of the software's historical lineage that appears through the various updates and revisions, and I saw definite signs of a market that is heating up.

HP's ongoing effort to migrate its OpenView OmniBack II (HP recentlydropped the price of the OmniBack II by 81 percent) from a UNIX world to WindowsNT has come with its fair share of troubles. Similarly, Seagate Software'slatest release of the traditionally midrange Backup Exec, the basis for NT'ssystem backup tools, finds that running with the enterprise pack involvesthousands of workstations across multiple platforms, and takes more than justsupporting an infinite number of servers. And both of these companies need tolook at NovaStor's gadget-laden NovaBack+, a possible future contender. Last,let's not forget St. Bernard Software's backup solution: If you can't run withthe big dogs, act as a plugin for them (for information about this option, see "OpenFile Manager," page 90).

OpenView OmniBack II
With the levels and degrees of data and media protection in HP's OpenViewOmniBack II backup software, this application is the type you want to protectyour company's data. Everything about OmniBack II is mission-critical, sort oflike the software you'd expect to find on the space shuttle. I discovered thisanalogy is rather fitting, because you just might need to be a rocket scientistto install, configure, and operate the software.

On the mission-critical side, the software is extremely robust, and evenwell thought-out, especially in the way it deals with recording devices andtheir media. For example, in addition to offering on-the-fly data encryption aseach new medium (tape, CD-ROM, etc.) is queued up in a recording device, thesoftware assigns the medium an identification number that tracks the number oftimes it has been written to and how long it has been in the device. After 250writes and rewrites or 36 months, the software considers the medium to besufficiently compromised to warrant replacing. This feature is nice when yourbusiness depends on the integrity of your media.

Additionally, by enabling write-protection as a default, the 32-bit nativesoftware protects data from something accidentally overwriting it. Also, beforeit starts writing, OmniBack II determines whether a particular medium has enoughroom to hold all the data for a particular session. You can configure thesoftware to access recording devices sequentially (cascading) for backing upsignificant amounts of data if one tape will be insufficient. Or when time is aconsideration, you can configure the software to simultaneously write up to fivemodular data streams to one standalone medium. This capability is a big plus,particularly in large or very large installations where backing up hundreds orthousands of workstations, one at a time, is simply not realistic. Otherdevice-specific features include the ability to configure redundant or auxiliarydrives in the event of drive or media failure, and robotic-autoloader andmagazine support, including barcode tracking and tape cleaning.

If you don't like waiting for software to do its thing, OmniBack II letsusers set up and configure additional backup tasks while other operations arerunning--a nice feature and a potential time-saver. And this software does notlack features: To notify specific individuals of the status of various jobs,OmniBack can use email, HTML pages, Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP),HP OpenView IT/Operation, or any combination of these methods. The softwaresupports remote access operation, is flexible about scheduling backups, andaccounts for holidays in its internal calendar.

OmniBack II operates in a homogeneous NT environment or a mixed environmentwith NetWare and UNIX. Through application agents, OmniBack II supportsMicrosoft SQL Server 6.0 and 6.5, Microsoft Exchange 1.0 to 4.0, and SAP R/33.0. The software also supports the following file systems: NT FAT, VFAT,High-Performance File System (HPFS), and NTFS. OmniBack II also supportsNT-specific registries, access control lists (ACLs), NTFS security objects,event logs, and extended file attributes.

You can push the OmniBack II client software across an NT network forinstallation and authorize client machines, with varying degrees offunctionality--from restoring the information pertinent to only its operations,to full enterprisewide access with administrator permission. The software uses acell structure to define areas of influence in an OmniBack IIenvironment. A cell is a group of client machines, media agents, and recordingdevices that one cell server controls. Also, you can control multipledistributed backup environments (cells) centrally for enterprise installations.

As you would expect from a software package of this caliber, OmniBack IIhas built-in software compression--Lempel-Ziv 4.3--good for roughly 50 percentcompression, depending on the type of data. When you use the built-in softwarecompression, expect time delays--backing up my test file took about 25 percentlonger with the software compression enabled.

A minor irritant is the lack of support for using the control and shiftkeys and a mouse to select numerous files simultaneously. Because most of thescreens are based on the NT Explorer interface, as shown inScreen 1, I expectedthe software to have this capability.

My only real gripe with this package is installation and setup. TheHP literature touts the intuitive design and easy installation of this package,but I wonder whether HP is describing the same software that I'm trying to use.For starters, when any package comes with a 150+ page booklet titled ConceptsGuide, instead of Installation Guide or Operator's Manual,you can probably assume that intuitive doesn't apply to this software.In all fairness, this package is too large and too involved to install easily.And the documentation doesn't ease the learning curve. Perhaps that's why HPProfessional Services offers the training course HP OmniBack II ImplementationAssistance Program.

Not all administrators will find the installation so daunting. If youthoroughly understand the NT domain naming structure and the various permissionsgranted to individuals or groups of individuals, you shouldn't have toomuch trouble getting OmniBack II going. The software uses NT's domain namingstructure to define its cells, and the TCP/IP protocol for communications.

As for the interface, I became familiar with it in a few days, but Iwouldn't call it intuitive. That's a label I'll reserve for an interface thatdoesn't require opening multiple screens to perform one task, such as backing updata. Admittedly, when backing up networks, you must consider numerousvariables: devices, security, encryption, hardware and software compression,scheduling, and the files you need to back up. A good interface puts thecontrols for as many variables as possible on one screen, which reduces errorsan administrator can cause by failing to open a window to tweak a variable.Also, the OmniBack II GUIs include large, useless graphics, which to me donothing more than take up perfectly good control space.

Overall, the power of this software, particularly the extensive enterprisescalability and multiplatform support and the way it deals with media, areimpressive--some might call the software stellar. However, the interfaces andinstallation are enough to put you in orbit. I'd like the software more if theinterfaces were more consolidated and if the documentation were better (i.e.,step-by-step), rather than "you need to set all of this stuff like so"when "like so" is spread over five or six different menu screens.

NovaBack+ 5.0
If you are considering NovaStor's NovaBack+ for Windows NT as a backupsolution for your network, be aware that this package does not support multipledomains. In fact, it can back up only those machines that are mapped to its harddisk. This limitation is a shame, because the engineers at NovaStor have createdand integrated some truly ingenious weapons that would delight networkadministrators to have in their backup arsenal.

For starters, with the Internet and intranets as the logistical channel ofchoice for digitized communications and with the critical nature of backed-updata, the decision to use a software package that includes some form of virusdetection seems to be a no-brainer. Surprisingly, finding this functionalityintegrated into backup software applications is far from the norm.

NovaStor added this functionality with Alwil's Avast32 virus-checkingsoftware and had the intelligence to make this functionality bidirectional--thesoftware detects viruses both when writing and restoring. Better still, when I ran the virus scanner, it slowed recording time by just 11 percent--an entirelyacceptable performance tradeoff if you consider the potential benefits.

NovaBack+, as seen in Screen 2, includes built-in software compression, which, like virus checking, is increasingly moving from the status of a luxury to that of a must-have. Most mass storage devices have some form of hardware compression built in. For those that don't, having software compressionavailable in your backup program is like having the right change for acomputerized tollbooth that doesn't take bills--the only way to go. NovaDisk+uses Stac Electronic's compression algorithm, which achieved 22.3 percentcompression on a mixed test file that included fonts, text, applications,images, and animations, with a marginal effect on performance.

The most intriguing aspect of this program is its disaster recovery scheme,NovaBoot. The NovaBoot routine resuscitates machines on your casualty list.NovaBoot walks users through the necessary steps to create a series of bootdisks (seven for our network server). These boot disks, with a verified backuptape of the target machine's hard disk and an NT CD-ROM, pump life back intodead circuits. At least, that's the theory.

In reality, this sunny scenario didn't shine on my network. The firstproblem I encountered was a bug that stopped the machine from requesting all thedisks in a restore set. After I fixed this problem, the application again haltedprematurely when it didn't recognize the tape device I installed, or moreaccurately, couldn't decide which tape device was the right one. Fortunately,with the help of some heroic tech support, I quickly fixed the problem. However,after I got the backup tape to write back to my hard disk, the battle stillwasn't over. I needed to use the NT boot disks (which the NovaBoot softwarecreated) and the NT Server CD-ROM to completely rebuild what I had destroyed.

A significant shortfall of the software is that it fails to identifypartitions in a hard disk and their respective file sets. So, if your hard diskis partitioned and it has a melt down, you can't just pop in a new hard disk,run the NovaBoot restore disks, and get your system back. You'll need to knowthe size, file types, and identity of your disk partitions and remember where NTsystem files resided before the crash.

Despite the pummeling NovaBoot gave my partitioned hard disk, I managed to restore the system without compromising file integrity. However, this restoration wasn't very pretty, and I don't recommend that you wipe out your hard disk just to see whether NovaBoot works.

Although I had a few setbacks, I found many things I liked about this software. Among the benefits: support for new media devices through the ability to define and configure device parameters (the more I played with this feature, the more I liked it), multilanguage support (with the notable exception of Asian languages), a self-booting CD-ROM, and an uninstall program that removes all program files.

Despite NovaBack+'s good features, the program lacks functionality for theright-mouse button. Software designed for NT needs to abide by all itsconventions. I would also like to see a quick-erase option with this package. Imade the unwitting mistake of telling NovaBack+ to erase a tape at the beginningof the work day and was rather dismayed to wait about three hours for thesoftware to complete a full, secure erase.

You also need to know that despite the confusing documentation, both onlineand in print, NovaBack+ has network support, albeit limited. The NovaBack+QUICKSTART GUIDE does not mention networking capabilities. The online Help filecontains one paragraph that mentions that you can map network drives; the onlinemanual includes basically the same information, but it specifies that thenetworking option is available only from a workstation, which I later discoveredisn't exactly true.

Much of this confusion centers on the configuration of your network. Thesoftware does not support the universal naming convention (UNC) that NT uses, soit does not recognize network drives unless you first use letters of thealphabet to map them to the server. After you complete this step, the softwareadds a Network option to the toolbar from the main menu, which lets LANadministrators map, back up, and restore up to 24 drives.

Even with NovaBack+'s endearing bells and whistles, this package strikes meas more a diamond in the rough than a real gem. The scheduler is just a bit tooclunky; the disaster recovery scheme, although effective, is painful; NovaBack+has little support for typical enterprise platforms and file structures; and thedocumentation could be a lot better. However, NovaStor doesn't ask an arm and aleg for this package, and you get the gamut of gadgetry to boot.

Backup Exec 7.0
The engineers at Seagate Software have spent the last two years searchingtheir competitors' wares and picking items to include in the next version ofBackup Exec. Backup Exec 7.0 (in beta 2 as of this writing) has grown from itsmidrange roots to a more robust solution aimed at large network installations,mostly through borrowing the structure and features of other solutionsavail-able today.

Although numerous enhancements are in the new version of Backup Exec, nonedo more to move the software toward supporting hundreds or thousands of machinesthan advanced device and media management. Because you can designate astandalone drive for a particular job or you can configure a device pool, thesize of backups is no longer restricted to available media capacity. Inaddition, version 7.0 lets users configure new tasks while others are running,and it allows concurrent writing of multiple jobs to multiple drives.

Other new features in this release include various levels ofwrite-protection, autoloader support, and media tracking capabilities. Thesoftware even retires a medium if it produces too many errors during tasks.Seagate also improved notification: Through email, print, or pager, it cannotify you of your backup operations' status.

The software will not write multiple modular data streams to one driveconcurrently, as other packages do. This capability could come in very handy inenterprise installations where you need to back up several machinesincrementally and only one recording device is available. Because networkconnections are typically the bottleneck in backup scenarios, giving the serverthe ability to write bits and pieces of data from multiple sources to one tapedrive concurrently is a big advantage. Writing to media in this fashionnecessitates more time for a restore than restoring from an uninterrupted datastream, but the benefits of having fewer tape drives, fewer media items that youneed to move to an offsite location, and flat-out speed far outweigh this minordetraction.

Another feature you need in an enterprise version of any software packageis the ability to distribute the application via the network to remote serversor workstations, which Backup Exec does, sort of. Using NT's built-in SystemsManagement Server (SMS), you can make an application available to other networkservers. However, you cannot install the software remotely, but you can controlBackup Exec servers from a central location after it is installed and operating.What you can install remotely is Agent Accelerator, the company's answer tospeeding up data transfer rates on networked backups. Agent Accelerator preparesa compressed data stream on the client machine and sends this information to thebackup server, thereby spreading out CPU-intensive tasks and minimizingnetworked traffic.

Another new feature is Seagate's version of disaster recovery, theIntelligent Disaster Recovery Option. This option is nice because it considersdisk partitions when restoring a system that has bought the farm. Not only willthe software reestablish the original partitions on your hard disk, but it letsyou redefine disk partitions during a restore if the new hard disk has adifferent capacity from the one it is replacing.

Like many disaster recovery routines for NT, Backup Exec's disasterrecovery uses three slightly modified setup and boot floppies created with theNT CD-ROM; unlike other backup programs, Backup Exec needs only one additionalfloppy. And when you make the fourth floppy (the only repository for criticalrestore information), Backup Exec prompts you to save the information on thefourth floppy in a folder somewhere on the network other than the machine thatyou are creating the disaster recovery floppies for.

To ensure that everything worked properly, I ran the disaster recoveryscheme and deleted my hard disk and its partitions. Creating the four floppieswas not too difficult. However, I found it strange that after I created thefirst three disaster recovery floppies, I needed to tell the software to run averified backup before it prompted me for the fourth floppy. After you make thefirst three floppies, the software suddenly pops you out of the disasterrecovery routine when the process is half done (the vendor claims that thisproblem was only in the beta version I tested). Only after you complete thefirst system backup and restart the disaster recovery scenario does the softwareprompt you to record the fourth floppy. This disaster recovery scheme is moreconfusing than it needs to be, but it is effective.

The 32-bit native software includes support for Microsoft BackOffice andhas agents to support Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange, NetWare, and IBMADSTAR Distributed Storage Manager (ADSM). Another new feature in Backup Exec isthe addition of Crystal Reports, which gives users a concise encapsulation ofthe status and condition of media, recording devices, backup jobs, and eventlogs.

This new version of Backup Exec has a new interface, as you see in Screen3. Some users will appreciate the 12 wizards that can do everything fromconfiguring backup and restore tasks, to creating media sets and cascaded drivepools. Beyond the wizards, Seagate engineers have smartly used tabs on the mainscreen to give users fast access to all the options in the package. Backup Execsupports bubble windows on toolbar icons and has a functional right-mousebutton. Users can highlight any item, whether it's a media device or a scheduledbackup job, and by clicking the right-mouse button, they can get a fullexplanation of the item and the ability to edit or adjust any of its parametersor variables.

I disliked the backup wizard's window for selecting the files that I wantedto back up. This window is too narrow and cannot be resized sufficiently. I haddifficulty seeing all the files and folders open on my network.

Something you won't notice, but are likely to benefit from, is BackupExec's adoption of the component object model (COM) architecture. According toSeagate, the COM architecture will be compatible with NT 5.0. And because of thenature of the COM architecture, Seagate can upgrade and add to the softwarequickly and easily.

The new version of Backup Exec has made some very serious moves towardbeing a full-blown backup powerhouse. However, it's not there yet.

Backup Exec's roots are in the midrange market, and you can tell. BackupExec's inability to push a full install of the software from a central serverand the software's inability to write multiple modular data streams concurrentlyto one drive left me wanting more. And what about providing SAP R/3 (Oracledatabase) support, virus protection, and data encryption? I want these featurestoo.

Don't get me wrong--I like the interface, installation, features, and trulyintelligent and functional disaster recovery. But for backing up thousands ofworkstations overnight, this software needs a little more horsepower.