[BBLISA] Amanda vs legato?

[John Stoffel]

Scott> Amanda is a free option, but I also know many people highly
Scott> recommend legato.  What are insights from this list?
Scott> Obviously, amanda is free (wrt redhat support), and legato
Scott> costs a lot more, but it would be paid-for support from EMC.

Scott> From the operational and support perspectives, what are the
Scott> list's recommendations?

Don't forget Bacula as well, very actively supported and does a good
job.  

Now, I use bacula at home, and Legato at work.  I've used Legato for
about 11+ years now, and I like some of it's features alot.  Other
features not so much.

Oh yeah, don't forget Veritsa Netbackup, which might be available on
Linux.  I personally don't like it's interface, but that's just me.

Anyway, Legato.  

Pros:

- very mature product
- supports lots and lots of drives and libraries
- you can get vendor support.  Sorta.  :]
- active mailing list for support too
- I love the CLI tools for managing my backups.  I don't like CLIs
  very much.  
- The 'nsrwatch' command is great for watching what backups are
  doing.  Think 'top' for backups.
- There are CLI and GUI end user tools for doing restores and
  archives, so you don't have to do them yourself, just have your user's
  do them if you like.

Cons:

- pricy
- baroque licensing scheme, dependent on bunchs of features.
- can be tempermental
- no source, so if you have problems, you can't fix them yourself.
- did I say expensive yet?  :]

It's late, and my kid is screaming and not going to sleep, so I'll
write more later when I've got some more time.