Two companies have come out with brushups to backup software this
week that include new support for MySQL databases and improved
interfaces for open source users, due, they said, to an uptick in
the number of companies adopting open source applications in recent
months.
BakBone Software Inc. announced version 3.0 of its NetVault
Backup Application Protection Module (APM) for MySQL, which will
include support for version 5.0 of the MySQL application;
differential backups (in addition to full and incremental options
offered before); support for several new Linux storage engines
called Federated, Berkley (BKB), Archive and CSV; and a new user
interface that will allow users to back up multiple storage engines
in a single job through a common management console.
Meanwhile, Zmanda Inc., itself an open source company that bases
its backup product on the open source standard Amanda, has
announced a 2.6 release of its software that will be available in
March. In addition to new support for Sun Microsystems Inc.'s
Solaris and zFS file system, the new version of Zmanda Recovery
Manager (ZRM), will also support MySQL databases, including
database clusters.
Zmanda has also revamped its software engine to add the Zmanda
Management Console, a Web-based interface the company's founder and
CEO, Chander Kant, said can be updated on the fly.
"It uses an open source technique called object-oriented PHP 5,
which means that when the interface changes, all the objects
already being managed below it inherit the new feature," Kant said.
This new capability means that the product's interface can be
changed in days rather than months, which Kant said his company is
hoping will be tasty for potential OEMs.
Kant also hinted that the company is in negotiations with a
major new OEM. Rumor has it that Zmanda could be gearing up to
climb under the covers of Amazon.com's S3 online storage
offering.
Open source applications gaining traction
Both companies said the updates stemmed from new demand from
customers running what's known as the LAMP stack. LAMP stands for
Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP-Perl-PostgreSQL, a list of the most
popular open source applications on the market. According to Derek
Balling, manager of systems administration for Vassar College, a
BakBone and MySQL user who also co-authored an O'Reilly book on
MySQL, version 5.0 of the database has added features that are
boosting its popularity.
Chief among the features enterprise open source users had been
waiting for from MySQL, according to Balling, is the ability to do
stored procedures -- to save and automate certain data management
functions within the database.
According to Balling, "[Adoption of open source applications]
will probably even out over the next few years, since there are
always going to be people who want support from a closed-source
vendor." But, he pointed out, as the open source user community
grows, resources for help will become more widely available and
in-depth. Meanwhile, while open source applications are growing
more robust, they remain vastly less expensive than their
proprietary counterparts, he said.
As for the backup products, both companies are focusing their
marketing around eliminating complex scripting and hands-on
management, something Balling said will be appealing despite the
background most open source users have in running their own
code.
For example, Balling said, in his environment a previous
"homebrew" backup application "stunk in every way you can think
of," driving him to consider BakBone in the first place. And even
hardcore programmers, he said, can see the benefit of automating
certain functions rather than running scripts over and over
again.
"This is still a developing market and it's unclear whether open
source users will have significantly different needs over time than
users of traditional storage products," according to IDC analyst
Doug Chandler. "I think everyone's looking for ease-of-use, a
single-pane-of-glass view of operations, support for heterogeneous
platforms, security, etc."
BakBone: Room for improvement
When it comes to the new BakBone software, it's not a new
feature but a bug fix Balling said he's most excited about.
"Previously, if you had a master and slave database for
replication, when you went to do a point-in-time backup of the
master database, it would break the master/slave relationship," he
said. "The new version fixes that."
Meanwhile, Balling said there's still an issue he's been
"hounding BakBone on for a year now," that remains outstanding,
having to do with tape cataloguing.
"If I have 100 tapes in my library and tapes one through 10 are
written to, removed and replaced with new tapes by a backup
administrator, the software will start over again with tape No. 1
instead of tape No. 11," he said. "This means that unless you take
all your tapes out every couple of weeks, you never write to the
tape at the end."
Balling said he was hoping to see BakBone change its software so
that tapes are written based on the last write date instead. In
response, BakBone director of product management wrote to
SearchStorage.com in an email that "BakBone is aware that this is a
nuisance for the customer, but is actively working with them to
provide enhancements to the next version." Also, despite a recent
update to the backup reporting tool, Balling said he would also
still like to see a more intuitive GUI in future releases.