Open Source Backup solutions

For Open Source Backup solutions, I would recommend you to take a look at the new book by Oreilly:

"Backup & Recovery"
http://www.backupcentral.com/content/view/125/47/
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596102463/

This book is an updated version of the 7-year old book "UNIX Backup & Recovery".

Since then, the book has been updated to include coverage on backup of Windows database such as SQL Server and Exchange Server. Also, the improvement of Samba has allowed more widely use of open source tools in a Windows network.

Among this book, you will find several OSS backup tools:

1) Amanda
2) BackupPC
3) Bacula
4) command line scripting: tar, cpio, dump; dd, ditto
5) Near CDP (Continuous Data Protection) with rsync, rsnapshot, rdiff-backup

Well, all I can say is, this is the book to get if you care about inexpensive open source backup tools.

Some of these tools should allow sophisticated scheduling or rule setting for selection of backup files / dates / differential backup, etc. Also, tools like Amanda should be able to make use of TAPE drive under Linux if SCSI driver is available for the SCSI controller / devices.

So check it out. You will get a lot of useful information in a short time with it.

PS: Norton Ghost equivalent such as "Partimage" and "CloneZilla", are not covered in the book, however.

Also of interest:
Curtis Preston, author's homepage, blogs & wiki on backup software

http://www.backupcentral.com/
http://www.backupcentral.com/components/com_mambowiki/index.php/Main_Page

Best Regards,
-Wily Yuen