Unix Backup and Recovery - Softcover

Preston, W. Curtis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1565926420 ISBN 13: 9781565926424

Publisher: O'Reilly Media, 1999

Synopsis

Unix Backup & Recovery provides a complete overview of all facets of Unix backup and recovery, and offers practical, affordable backup and recovery solutions for environments of all sizes and budgets. The book begins with detailed explanations of the native backup utilities available to the Unix administrator, and ends with practical advice on choosing a commercial backup utility.This book:

• Describes the features, limitations, and syntax of Unix backup and restore utilities,(including dump, tar, cpio, dd, GNUtar, and GNUcpio) for many popular versions of Unix, including AIX, Compaq Unix, HP-UX, IRIX, SCO, Solaris, and Linux
• Provides instructions for installing and configuring freely available backup systems such as AMANDA
• Includes ready-to-run shell scripts that automate live backups of Informix, Oracle, and Sybase databases
• Presents step-by-step recovery procedures for Oracle, Informix, and Sybase
• Presents step-by-step "bare-metal" disaster recovery procedures for AIX, Compaq Unix, HP-UX, IRIX, Solaris, and Linux
• Describes the design of "disaster recovery" and "highly available" systems
• Provides guidance on choosing a commercial backup and recovery system
• Describes the features and limitations of backup hardware

About this title

Review

The Unix file system is reliable and very well-suited to mission-critical applications in which maximum uptime is key. But it's not flawless, and that's where Unix Backup & Recovery comes in. This book details dozens of strategies for keeping Unix systems online. The strategies range from good administration practices that minimize problems to hot-restore techniques that allow you to recover from breaks as seamlessly as possible. The book also contains absolutely inclusive archive techniques that allow you to restore huge databases and file systems from backup media.

Unix Backup & Recovery includes a lot of general "recommended practices" advice and lots of scary stories about lost files (and more than a few about heroic system administrators who saved the day, or at least the data). But it gets down to brass tacks too, documenting lots of backup and recovery tools that can make the administrator's job much easier when they're used properly (including cpio, tar, and AMANDA). Coverage of specific systems' backup and recovery issues (including those of Solaris, HP-UX, Oracle, Sybase, and Informix) are invaluable, as is the coverage of techniques for extracting information from ancient, obsolete backup media. The point: read this book before you have a disaster, so you can do everything required to head one off and be ready to deal with problems when they happen. --David Wall

Topics covered: Strategies for protecting the contents and availability of Unix systems, particularly those running Solaris, Linux, Compaq True-64 Unix, HP-UX, IRIX, and AIX. Coverage also includes backup and recovery software (free and commercial), and the mechanics of protecting and fixing large database management systems. There's also a lot of advice on defensive administration, backup hardware, and obsolete media.

About the Author

W. Curtis Preston has specialized in designing data protection systems since 1993, and has designed such systems for many environments, both large and small. His lively prose and wry, real-world approach has made him a popular author and speaker.

Edition details

• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1565926420
• ISBN 13: 9781565926424
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 736