Next month, Lab employees who use computers running UNIX operating systems will be able to sign up for a new automatic computer backup service that offers a number of advantages over the current backup offering. According to the Computing Infrastructure Support (CIS) Department staff, the new service, called Veritas Netbackup, will meet UNIX user requests for a backup service that is of high quality, and is very stable and accessible.

The new service will offer a range of options to try to better meet the needs of staff. Although pricing has not been finalized, the plan is to provide a service where employees will only have to pay for those services actually used.

"Backing up data - and being able to access it easily - is critical to most scientific research efforts at the Lab. But many people don't think about their backup service until they need to recover lost files. That's when they learn the value of an automatic service," said Rosemary Evanoff, head of CIS. "Our goal is to provide a backup service that is automatic, reliable and easy to use, as well as being affordable for users. We think Veritas will meet those goals."

Veritas, which will be administered by Lab staff, will be a cost-effective alternative to Legato, the Lab's current backup service for UNIX workstations. The new service performs a complete backup of each system each month, so that retrieving files is much easier and faster.

Among the other "new and improved" features of Veritas are:

• Provides statistics on user data growth (for help in planning future hardware purchases)
  
• Allows users to do their own restores
  
• Imposes no limits on the amount of data that can be backed up
  
• Notifies users if a backup is not successful (such as a computer being off during the scheduled backup time).

The Veritas service will be managed by Lab staff, and backed up data will be stored on site. Tapes of all backed-up files will also be created and stored off site for added protection. Because data will be transferred only over a local-area network, the system is secure.

Veritas users will be able to use a Web interface to look at their backup statistics and to perform complex queries. For example, seeing the amount of data created over the past month, and how that compares to previous months, can help users determine if they have enough storage in their desktop system.

Because the new system will be operated by Lab staff who are familiar with the computing needs of the LBNL scientific community, the CIS staff believes they will be able to provide better, more responsive service. The new service will be available starting around February. See the January issue of Computing News for a further update about the new service.