Backup software Backup software is software which is designed to automate the process of backing up, making it easier and ensuring that people back up their files routinely. Several companies produce free backup software with basic functionality, and it is also possible to purchase backup suites which have an array of settings and options which can be used to customize the backup process. For people who have trouble remembering to back up, or people who deal with important material, backup software can be extremely useful. List of backup software AMANDA 1. Areca Backup 2. BackupPC 3. Bacula 4. Create Synchronicity AMANDA(Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver) Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver is an open source computer archiving tool that is able to back up data residing on multiple computers on a network. It uses a client–server model and includes: • the backup server and client itself • a tape server • an index server All three servers do not necessarily need to run on the same machine. Amanda was initially developed at the University of Maryland and is released under a BSD-style license. Amanda is available both as a free community edition and fully supported enterprise edition. Amanda runs on almost any Unix or Linux-based systems. Amanda supports Windows systems using Samba or Cygwin. A native Win32 client (with support for open files) is also now available. Amanda supports both tape-based and disk-based backup, and provides some useful functionality not available in other backup products. Amanda supports tape-spanning - i.e. if a backup set does not fit in one tape, it will be split into multiple tapes. Among its key features is an intelligent scheduler which optimizes use of computing resources across backup runs. Areca Backup Areca Backup is a personal file backup software developed in Java. It is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) 2. Features Areca Backup includes a backup engine, as well as a graphical user interface and a command-line interface. The application includes the following features: • ZIP/ZIP64 compression • AES 128 & AES 256 encryption • Backup filters (by extension, subdirectory, regular expression, size, date, status, usage) • Incremental backup, differential and full backup support • Delta backup (only the modified parts of the files will be stored, not the whole files) • Archives merges • As of date recovery • Transaction mechanism (with commit/rollback management) for all critical processes (such as backups or merges) to guarantee your backups' integrity • Unix file permissions backup/recovery • E-Mail reports • Backup simulation • FTP and FTPS support (SSL/TLS in both implicit and explicit modes) Areca also provides all tools needed to handle your archives: • Backup • Archive recovery (with or without deleted files); entire archives or single files can be easily recovered • Archive merge: contiguous incremental archives can be merged into a single archive to save storage space • Archive deletion • History explorer: different versions of a given file can be browsed and restored • Archive explorer: files can be searched among your archives Storage modes Areca can handle multiple storage modes: • Standard: It is the default mode, which is recommended for most users: If you choose this storage mode, a new archive will be created for each backup. All new or modified files since the last backup will be stored in this archive. • Delta: This mode is recommended for advanced users only: If you choose this storage mode, a new archive will be created for each backup. All modified *parts* of files since the last backup will be stored in this archive. This mode is particularly useful if you are handling large files. • Image: If you choose this storage mode, a unique archive will be created and updated at each backup. Backup types Areca can handle the following types of backups: • Full Backup: When a full backup is performed, ALL files are stored in your archive (whether they have been modified or not). • Incremental backup: When an incremental backup is performed, only the files which have been modified since the last backup are stored in your archive. • Differential backup: When a differential backup is performed, only the files which have been modified since the last FULL backup are stored in your archive. Areca uses the file's size and last modification time to detect modified files. If one of these attributes is modified (whatever its value is), the file is flagged as modified. This allows a fast detection of modified files. Areca is downloadable pre-packaged for Linux and Windows 2000/Windows XP and Windows Vista. But it also runs on any other operating system, provided that a Java Runtime Environment has been installed (version 1.4.2 or later). It has been translated to: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish. Latest stable version 7.1.6 released on 2009-12-07. BackupPC BackupPC is a free Disk-to-disk backup software suite with a web-based frontend. The cross-platform server will run on any Linux, Solaris, or UNIX based server. No client is necessary, as the server is itself a client for several protocols that are handled by other services native to the client OS. BackupPC is mentioned as one of the three most well known open-source backup software [1]. Data deduplication reduces the disk space needed to store the backups in the disk pool. It is possible to use it as D2D2T solution, if the archive function of BackupPC is used to backup the disk pool to tape. For instance, BackupPC incorporates a Server Message Block (SMB) client that can be used to back up network shares of computers running Windows. Paradoxically, under such a setup the BackupPC server can be located behind a NAT'd firewall while the Windows machine operates over a public IP address. While this may not be advisable for SMB traffic, it is more useful for web servers running SSH with GNU tar and rsync available, as it allows the BackupPC server to be stored in a subnet separate from the web server's DMZ. It is published under the GNU General Public License. Features Protocol choice Only minimal configuration on client machines is required when backing up systems that have SSH available natively. On Windows, third party implementations of tar, rsync, and SSH (such as Cygwin) are required to utilize those protocols. The choice between tar and rsync is dictated by the hardware and bandwidth available to the client. Clients backed up by rsync use considerably more CPU time than client machines using tar or SMB. Clients using SMB or tar use considerably more bandwidth than clients using rsync. These trade- offs are inherent in the differences between the protocols. Using tar or SMB transfers each file in its entirety, using little CPU but maximum bandwidth. The rsync method calculates checksums for each file on both the client and server machines in a way that enables a transfer of just the differences between the two files; this uses more CPU resources, but minimizes bandwidth. Data Storage BackupPC uses a combination of hard links to reduce the total disk space used for files. At the first full backup, all files are transferred to the backend, optionally compressed, and then compared. Files that are identical are hard linked, which uses only one additional directory entry. The upshot is that an astute system administrator could potentially back up ten Windows XP laptops with 10 GB of data each, and if 8 GB is repeated on each machine (Office and Windows binary files) would look like 100 GB is needed, but only 28 GB (10x 2GB + 8GB) would be used. Compression of the data on the back-end will further reduce that requirement. When browsing the backups, incrementals are automatically filled back to the previous full backup. So every backup appears to be a full and complete dump of data. Performance When backing up a remote SMB share, speeds of 3-4 Mbit are normal. A local disk used as a backup destination returns speeds of 10+ Mbit depending on CPU performance. A faster CPU will naturally help with compression and md5sum generation. Speeds of over 13 MB/s are attainable on a gigabit LAN when backing up a Linux client using rsync over SSH, even when the backup destination is non-local. Bacula Bacula is an open source, enterprise level computer backup system for heterogeneous networks. It is designed to automate backup tasks that had often required intervention from a systems administrator or computer operator. Bacula supports Linux, UNIX and Windows backup clients, and a range of professional backup devices including tape libraries. Administrators and operators can configure the system via a command line console, GUI or web interface; its back-end is a catalog of information stored by MySQL, PostgreSQL, or SQLite. Introduction Bacula is a set of computer programs for managing backup, recovery, and verification of computer data across a network. These programs work together to provide a robust, easily managed, and complete backup solution for mixed operating system environments. Bacula is the collective work of many developers, including Kern Sibbald, and its current release has been built upon ten years of development. It is open source and available without fees for both commercial and non-commercial application, with respect to the GPL2 license with exceptions to permit linking with OpenSSL and distributing Windows binaries. Bacula is a registered trademark of Kern Sibbald. According to project information published on Source Forge, since April 2002, Bacula has over 1 million downloads, which is four times more than any other Open Source backup program during the same period. By download statistics, this makes it the most popular Open Source backup program.