Post #188,575
12/30/04 1:07:30 PM
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Software and hardware advice
Part of my plan for the next year is reorganizing the development process in the office. Right now the source code, source art and materials and testing systems are scattered around the office. My eventual goal is to concentrate all of the source code and materials on two machines that can be backed up regularly. One will run Windows for IIS and SQL server, the other Linux for Apache and MySql.
I would like to recommend some form of source control for this also. It will need to be aimed mostly at web sites, and needs to have Windows, Mac and Linux clients. The clients have to be easy enough for the artists / html coders to handle. It would be very helpful if it works with graphic files in addition to the HTML and PHP/ASP/Cold Fusion source code.
My experience is almost entirly with Visual Source Safe, and I consider that marginal at best and pretty bad for web sites.
I also need some advice on the best way to backup the system. The work we do involves a lot of artwork, including some video. So I expect to have to handle 100s of MB of backup material. But I really don't have an estimate yet, as the material is scattered and at least some of it only exists on the live site.
Anybody have suggestions?
Jay
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Post #188,577
12/30/04 1:21:53 PM
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Backups are problematic, IMO. RAID + external USB HD.
Probably the most convenient way to do backups is to another hard drive (or automatically through a RAID mirror setup). Tape drives are expenseive and have little capacity unless you get something really heavy duty. Hard drives are much cheaper but you have the risk of drive failure (rather than tape failure). CDs are too small. DVDs aren't much larger.
I'd suggest investigating a RAID mirror and maybe having a USB hard drive chassis that you can swap another backup drive in. See [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=136997|#136997] for an option. (There are boxes that use the same racks for PC mount and external mount if that's important.) Advantages include: you can add capacity as you need it and don't have to mess around with your PC's internals.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #188,581
12/30/04 2:45:08 PM
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'Tape - I hate tape - there's nothing worse than tape -
- except not having tape" - Trudy Holt (an 30 year mainframer with heavy PC experience who's been a sometimes business associate).
A backup scheme that doesn't rotate back-ups off site is, in my opinion, highly questionable. Off-site rotation is the only defence against fire, flood, theft, acts of war and civil disobedience and acts of vengeful employees. For most modest size businesses that means tape. More than once the day has been saved by the tape in the owners wife's purse.
80-Gig DLT drives are reasonably affordable these days and several of my clients have them. Others are fine with 8-Gig or 20-Gig DAT (the main advantage of which is cheap tapes).
I always do tell the clients that tape drives are fragile and failure prone, so figure replacing it every 2 to 3 years - and to balance that against the cost of total data loss (in many cases that cost would be loss of the business).
For those really financially strained I buy a reconditioned DAT drive, or a couple from eBay to make sure I get a good one. With DAT I can convince them to buy enough tapes for proper rotation.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #188,585
12/30/04 3:28:02 PM
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with Andrew but a step further
have the tape backup on a separate linux box from the rest of the equipment. Have everyone do hot backups to Linux and have the linux box back to tape for offsite storage, rotating tapes from home to work is just fime in a small outfit. Whatever you do test the integrity of the backups monthly. A cacked head that doesnt backup correctly and doesnt throw errors could be a problem if you needed a complete restore down the road.
regards,
daemon
that way too many Iraqis conceived of free society as little more than a mosh pit with grenades. ANDISHEH NOURAEE
clearwater highschool marching band [link|http://www.chstornadoband.org/|http://www.chstornadoband.org/]
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Post #188,589
12/30/04 3:59:23 PM
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For the cost of the...
The New SDLT drives or even the new AIT drives, you can get a system together that'll do nearly everything you need.
SDLT (bare-drives) are costing $4700 brand-new, $6500 with retail kit.
For that money, you could buy a setup with SCSI drives or like I did with the SATA and PATA drives. The hotswap features needed are nearly perfectly aligned with SATA and SATA-II. Reducing the costs of these cages.
Promise make a 12 drive SATA-II capable rackmount. It works with 2 of their cards or 1 of 3ware's. It is cheaper than you think, would work just fine from a 2-4U rackmount system. You could put a single Hot-swap slot cage for the backup media in the actual machine.
Soon, real soon, I foresee Storage cabinets with mountains of SATA drives and a robot to insert and manage the drives in 4-16 swap slots.
This will be the backup of the future, the tape drives will no longer be needed, Drive technology will just keep getting bigger and cheaper and faster.
Watchout for iSCSI and storage arrays 150 Kilometers away from the machine(s) using them, with additional mirrors even farther away.
-- [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg], [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwetheyNo matter how much Microsoft supporters whine about how Linux and other operating systems have just as many bugs as their operating systems do, the bottom line is that the serious, gut-wrenching problems happen on Windows, not on Linux, not on Mac OS. -- [link|http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1622086,00.asp|source]Here is an example: [link|http://www.greymagic.com/security/advisories/gm001-ie/|Executing arbitrary commands without Active Scripting or ActiveX when using Windows]
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Post #188,594
12/30/04 4:43:41 PM
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SDLT vs AIT...
...an angle you may not have thought of.
Tape Safe Space.
SLDTs are BIG. Physically, I mean; A single SDLT tape occupies the same space as 4 AIT3 tapes.
Tape safe space is not cheap, and gets progressively more not cheap once you go past the 2.5 hour mark and as the rated temperature rises.
One might say that one is willing to take a chance on a crappy tape safe; it's worth bearing in mind that 50% of all companies that suffer a total data loss go out of business within 12 months.
Peter
[link|http://www.ubuntulinux.org|Ubuntu Linux]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
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Post #188,631
12/30/04 9:38:38 PM
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SATA? No way.
First, those systems are a bit rich for my clients. Most ar fine with an 80-Gig DLT (or even a 40-Gig or 20-Gig DAT). The 80-Gig drive runs under $1300 and another $420 for 7 tapes (daily rotation plus monthly alternate).
Trouble with SATA drives is they (especially in a hot swap tray) don't fit comfortably in a purse. SATAs are also very fragile. I've seen photographers get entire jobs wiped out (and recovery houses couldn't recover anything for thousands of dollars) when someone dropped a 1" drive in the parking lot. 3" drives are infinitely more fragile than that.
And here's something NOBODY is talking about. I pull a lot of drives out of machines and store them for repair use. A year later about 30% of those drives are DEAD - and I don't mean the platters are stuck to the heads, I mean they are DEAD.
I absolutely won't trust hard disks with archival storage no matter how cheap they are. Tapes last a long time, even at above a comfortable room temperature. Hard disks don't survive the best storage conditions.
People have been writing articles titled "Tape is Dead" for about 2 decades now, and tape still isn't dead.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #188,632
12/30/04 9:46:02 PM
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What You Said.
Peter
[link|http://www.ubuntulinux.org|Ubuntu Linux]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
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Post #189,282
1/7/05 7:06:15 AM
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Re: SATA? No way. Huh?
Curious: are there a few surface-mount Tantalum caps on those boards?
Ta.s typ. fail as dead short (fractional-ohm). Some I know have seen one burn through the epoxy board, like a knife.. So unless it's a clever PS \ufffd l\ufffd Tek, where any overload simply produces repetitive start-up pulses of limited current - DEAD would be the word.
Seems an odd development. Obv you see many more samples than moi - but I wonder if this is an effect of some recent cheesy million-part component purchases. I've occasionally started up a few 1-to-a-few GB drives, now nearly 10? years old, with no problem. Not even ATA, of course - just IDE.
WTF - we may not need 'permanent storage' in any traditional sense - the next Gen users of stone knives won't even be able to spell 'analog'.
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Post #189,288
1/7/05 9:03:31 AM
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Isn't that what happens when
Ana goes numba2 == analog
What are these Stones Kanives you talk about?
Me use this not-pointy rock to bash things. Me spill red icky wet stuff all over if Me use pointy rock. Nice rock keep meat sack from spilling, me then have to bash real good to get lumps out of meat sack. One thing, Me no like fluffy stuff on meat sack. Me wamt to no chew that.
/me surpresses primordial self again, back to you regularly scheduled program
-- [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg], [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey[link|http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=134485&cid=11233230|"Microsoft Security" is an even better oxymoron than "Miltary Intelligence"] No matter how much Microsoft supporters whine about how Linux and other operating systems have just as many bugs as their operating systems do, the bottom line is that the serious, gut-wrenching problems happen on Windows, not on Linux, not on Mac OS. -- [link|http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1622086,00.asp|source]
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Post #189,436
1/8/05 10:44:28 PM
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Umgawa, meatus
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Post #188,587
12/30/04 3:37:32 PM
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Source archiving for PC, Linux AND MAC?!?
Geez, you don't set the bar too high, do you?
Well, if money is no object (and there is an administrator available...that would be you, wouldn't it...) then ClearCase is probably the best. It supports remote clients well, and looks to the users as if it is a hard drive (on windows) or a file system (on Linux). So archiving things is only a little more complicated than getting a file from your hard drive. and, directories are also archived, so the entire archiev hierarchy can be rolled back. It can be hosted on either Linux or Windows, and either hosting supports both Windows and Linux clients. But no Mac :-(. It's also expen$ive.
Now, if you have to run Mac clients as well...well, perhaps CVS would do the trick. Not nearly as nice as ClearCase, but you can't beat the price (it's Open Source). Furthermore, Eclipse has a nice set of plug-ins for it that provide a nice user front end for CVS (almost as nice as ClearCase's). I believe that clients already exist for Mac, and it can be hosted practially anywhere. downsides include all the normal OSS downsides: No useful documentation, help from the community as opposed to a help desk (Hey,...that may actually be an advantage...).
Good luck, and let us know what you come up with....
jb4
shrub\ufffdbish (Am., from shrub + rubbish, after the derisive name for America's 43 president; 2003) n. 1. a form of nonsensical political doubletalk wherein the speaker attempts to defend the indefensible by lying, obfuscation, or otherwise misstating the facts; GIBBERISH. 2. any of a collection of utterances from America's putative 43rd president. cf. BULLSHIT
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Post #188,694
12/31/04 1:31:28 PM
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Re: Source archiving for PC, Linux AND MAC?!?
Well, if money is no object (and there is an administrator available...that would be you, wouldn't it...) then ClearCase is probably the best. My estimated budget is roughly $0.00. So I'm going to have to go open source and recycled hardware where ever possible. And in my case I do have to have Mac support. Both of the artists used Mac's for artwork and some HTML coding. And avoiding conflicts where I'm working on the code and they are changing the artwork at the same time is one of the big goals here. Jay
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Post #188,588
12/30/04 3:42:45 PM
12/30/04 3:48:29 PM
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Yes, I do.
I just did a new backup solution.
1.4TB of scratch (or main storage for backups) and hot swap 300GB SATA Drives for Media.
I use 4 - 300GB drives for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
I have 10 additional (bought some more) 300GB Drives and H/S Trays for the cage I bought.
Friday1, Friday2, Friday3, Month1, Month2, Month3, Month4, Month5, Month6
So, it gives me offsite storage protection for 6 months.
Nice setup. Looks like it'll be about 20-30 times faster for backups. In the long run, cheaper too.
And, to be honest, I have never had GREAT (nor good) luck with tape systems under $100K.
I like the that Drive technology that is driving storage capacity to insane levels, is the best technology to use for backup media as well. Dunnah have to be the fastest drives, just pretty fast and we also get Random Access rather than serial/streaming access.
This will be the way backup systems will go.
Also, Samba, NFS and Netatalk work great for just about any choice of OS. Which means you can backup to this backup mechanism easily from different kinds of hosts. I'd use subversion (svn) for source storage, then rsync the repository to your backup machine.
I'll tell you this, I am in the process of developing my policy for site backup soon, rather than one-off for each machine. It pays to have a "site" backup policy. That way, the people who look for blame can place it directly on the people that "didn't follow policy" keeping you out of the foray and being a middleman.
-- [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg], [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwetheyNo matter how much Microsoft supporters whine about how Linux and other operating systems have just as many bugs as their operating systems do, the bottom line is that the serious, gut-wrenching problems happen on Windows, not on Linux, not on Mac OS. -- [link|http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1622086,00.asp|source]Here is an example: [link|http://www.greymagic.com/security/advisories/gm001-ie/|Executing arbitrary commands without Active Scripting or ActiveX when using Windows]
Edited by folkert
Dec. 30, 2004, 03:48:29 PM EST
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Post #188,614
12/30/04 7:10:42 PM
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Source Control.
I'm finding this is a bit of a strange industry. The professional boys seem disconnected from the open-source guys, which is odd given that many people say SourceSafe is rubbish and I know from current experience that even CVS beats Seapine Surround. BitKeeper is the only one that seems to be breaking new ground in the proprietary product area, althouth that's a provisional statement as I have no experience with ClearCase et al.
And everyone's expensive. Really expensive. Even BitKeeper.
If you'd like to consider open-source, then SubVersion comes recommended. It's not ambitious, compared to things like Arch or BitKeeper, but it's robust, reliable and qutie a bit better than CVS. Trust me: once you've used SubVersion, you won't want to go back to CVS. But then that's what they were aiming for all along, anyway.
I'd also trust the Linux CLI clients of the open-source guys over the proprietary products. Seapine Surround have one, for instance, but it's pretty awkward. You still need the GUI to do some things.
And SubVersion has Mac and several Windows clients.
Wade.
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
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Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
| -- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne. |
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Post #188,626
12/30/04 8:25:54 PM
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AccuRev, Perforce, CVS, Subversion
Some places to research:
comp.software.config-mgmt
[link|http://www.cmcrossroads.com/|http://www.cmcrossroads.com/]
Based on my research (including comp.software.config-mgmt):
BitKeeper is expensive, and pretty a no-go for small companies. They're not interested unless you're got at least 15 seats or so.
Perforce is $750/client, everything included. You can run a two named user system with all the add-ons for free, so it's easy to evaluate. Perforce seems to have a good reputation on the newsgroup.
AccuRev has a very interesting concept, Streams, that does break new ground. It starts at around $750/client, and the Java GUI is kind a clunky, but it could be worth it, e.g. I suspect doing a lot of branching would be easier in it than most. (I did an eval of it; for a commercial system I'd seriously consider it).
CVS and variants are the open source standard. One guy was plugging CVSNT on the newsgroup (claiming it was better than Subversion).
There are some potentially interesting ones under development, such as Monotone [link|http://www.venge.net/monotone/|http://www.venge.net/monotone/] Darc [link|http://abridgegame.org/darcs/|http://abridgegame.org/darcs/] and Codeville [link|http://codeville.org/|http://codeville.org/]
I'm still evaluating version control for personal use. Since cost is an issue, and I'd like good documentation, stability, and a reasonable user base, I'll most likely go with Subversion. (Subversion has a book available, is past V1.1, and seems to be picking up some stream).
Also remember that the overall Software Configuration Management / Version Control process is very important.
Tony
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Post #188,639
12/30/04 11:00:09 PM
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+1 on Subversion
From someone who always hated Windows CVS interfaces... ;) I've had my projects on it for a few months now. Granted, I'm a lone developer, and so haven't run into conflict management yet.
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Post #188,698
12/31/04 2:16:37 PM
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Subversion is excellent now
I'm using it myself, and I'm trying to get it introduced at work.
Note that it does binary diffs as well as text, so the images and so forth will work well in Subversion.
The GUI tools work well also: RapidSVN and TortoiseSVN.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #188,700
12/31/04 2:29:55 PM
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Yup. LOVE TortoiseSVN. Any tips on binary diff'ers?
Like for MS Office docs, image formats, etc.
??
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Post #189,289
1/7/05 9:04:20 AM
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Gosh if you find one...
Let me know.
-- [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg], [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey[link|http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=134485&cid=11233230|"Microsoft Security" is an even better oxymoron than "Miltary Intelligence"] No matter how much Microsoft supporters whine about how Linux and other operating systems have just as many bugs as their operating systems do, the bottom line is that the serious, gut-wrenching problems happen on Windows, not on Linux, not on Mac OS. -- [link|http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1622086,00.asp|source]
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Post #189,313
1/7/05 12:51:23 PM
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CSDiff looks promising, but I don't have time to try it atm
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Post #189,412
1/8/05 12:54:58 PM
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GAH! Win32 only... ICK!
-- [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg], [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey[link|http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=134485&cid=11233230|"Microsoft Security" is an even better oxymoron than "Miltary Intelligence"] No matter how much Microsoft supporters whine about how Linux and other operating systems have just as many bugs as their operating systems do, the bottom line is that the serious, gut-wrenching problems happen on Windows, not on Linux, not on Mac OS. -- [link|http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1622086,00.asp|source]
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Post #189,419
1/8/05 2:30:12 PM
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What, you want an MSWord differ on nix? >:)
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Post #189,428
1/8/05 5:46:22 PM
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I shouldn't even dignify this with a reply... but
Why yes, I do want a Word Differ on *NIX.
Well, what I really want is to be able to submit those diffs to a repository and archive that repository. Being able to restore the file in all it's stages whilst saving archive space.
-- [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg], [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey[link|http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=134485&cid=11233230|"Microsoft Security" is an even better oxymoron than "Miltary Intelligence"] No matter how much Microsoft supporters whine about how Linux and other operating systems have just as many bugs as their operating systems do, the bottom line is that the serious, gut-wrenching problems happen on Windows, not on Linux, not on Mac OS. -- [link|http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1622086,00.asp|source]
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Post #188,640
12/30/04 11:07:08 PM
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Maybe something else to consider: iBackup
It's a remote backup service. While there are certainly benefits to having a remote backup, there are certainly downsides to not having full control over what may be vital company information. They do encrypt everything and use SSL, so at least security seems to have been well considered.
[link|http://www.ibackup.com/|iBackup].
No experience with it myself, just passing on a pointer.
Cheers,
Scott.
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