[PLUG] Backups -- revisited

[Rich Shepard]

  Today's mail brought an upgrade to BRU-17.0. This is the backup software
I've used for the past four years and I was quite happy when the employees
bought the name and products after the company tanked. (It's now The Tolis
Group.)

  Anyway, I know that from time to time questions have been raised here
about what backup software to use, especially in a mixed-OS, enterprise
environment. Because I didn't recognize the significance of the
"Workstation" chop on the CD, I called them to ask. It's the same
network-capable version I've been using all along. But, the reason I write
is that they have a couple of other products that folks here might want to
consider.

  On the high end is their new BRU-Pro 2.0. It now supports tape libraries
and mixed OS environments. Next week they'll have their W2K clients
available (in addition to the NT/9x/whatever clients). From a linux (or
other UNIX) server you can now back up everything.

  On the lower end are the SOHO offering and a home user offering.

  The reason I'm enthused about the company and its products is the superb
support they've always offered. One of their executives (I think he's now
the President) was a constant presence on the floppy-tape mail list years
ago and walked me through the configuration of my old Colorado Memory
Systems floppy tape drive with BRU-14 or -15. That kind of help wins my
loyalty. Over the years I've had problems with tape drives (as some of you
know only too well) that were resolved by going to a high-end drive; at
least, high end for my small operation: the Tandberg SLR-60. Since that was
installed summer before last I've had absolutely no backup problems. The BRU
crew went the extra mile helping me diagnose where the problem was (they
worked with Tandberg's tech support on the previous drive's problems) and
they helped me tune the command line for the new drive.

  So, using BRU costs more than tar, dump, cpio and uucp but it's been well
worth the money for me. I don't mind recommending them because of the value
they've given to me over the years.

Rich