Question

You are the backup administrator for a large trust company. The backup server is a Linux operating system server. Your goal is to create a backup plan utilizing a technique from Chapter 11. Select from the following:

1. Tape Archive
2. Copy in Out
3. Dump
4. Dd
5. Disc Buring Software

Explain why you would select this technique. Once you have selected the technique, describe the commands you would utilize to set up the backup (give command examples).

Your paper should be 1-2 pages and go into detail on why you have selected the technique, the commands to utilize and demonstrate a high technical understanding. APA format should be utilized.

Answer 1

An efficient Backup Plan:

A Brief Description:

As a backup administrator, our main focus should be on creating a dependable backup system. When it comes to options

, Linux provides us with a lot of options to choose form. There are lots of types of backup we can implement. they are:

1. Full Backup: As the name suggests this technique makes a complete copy of all data of our systems. This results in a centralized data repository. But the operations are slower and also require a lot of space. On the other hand, it makes recovery fast and easy.
2. Incremental Backup:This records data that changed from last backup and in a pre-scheduled manner. This takes less space and also faster in some cases. But in case of single record search, it is slower.
3. Network Backup: Network backups use a client-server model to send data over backup destinations. This can be deployed for onsite and offsite backup and also is fully incremental. Due to network dependency, it puts overhead on network management and also requires costly setup.

There are many more like FTP Backups, Differential backup, etc.

Now let us look at some native Linux backup tools :

• tar: The full name is Tapearchiver.This is one of the most popular backup tools .with the help of the tool we can do full backups of servers and multiple devices. We also can perform network backups.
• dump: This is an old school tool which backups file systems, not individual files. This supports incremental backups as well as full backups. But we need to implement it manually.
• dd: This tool is simple but has lot of good functionality. This has a really strong data protection concepts.dd is also root user restricted. Thus we have to very careful when implementing it otherwise the data can vanish permanently.
• cpio: The full form is copy input to output.This tool backups the entire system and also the individual files. This tool is really hard to implement at first.

After getting knowledge about the whole picture and what are the tools available for designing backup plans, I have choose cpio to implement the backup system of the organization. Here are the reasons for this selection:

What are the benefits of cpio?

• This is one of the most modular and versatile tool available. This flexibility gives natural advantages over other utilities.
• Different from dump , this backup the entire file system rather than individual files.
• Also, cpio can backup data to multiple locations at the same time.
• There is a lot of support for different types of archives.

How this helps?

• There is lot of employee and data set and data repository in a large company. All repository can be same type or a different one.The modularity of the cpio helps us generalize a format for backup.
• Also in a large company, there will be branches in lot of places . Thus by using this tool, we can update all the servers at the same time.
• There is support for a lot of archive formats like binary,HPUX ,old tar and many more. When extracting from archives this tool recognizes the type of the file and acts accordingly so don't have to worry about the type of the archive we are using.
• As cpio is very versatile,so it is comparatively lot harder to implement at the initial stage.But after deployed , there is minimal need of maintenance.Being a large company we should focus on a long term solution rather than saving a few bucks.that's why cpio is perfect for this situation.

Backup using cpio command:

To do backup we use a search command like find. Here are the command list and their functionality.

Commands	Workings
1. cd/u/test 2. find .-print|cpio-ocv >/server/file	These commands try to read by find command and copy it location (/server/file).
find.cpio/server/file-print	This command saves files and writes info to target file .this is also much faster.
1.cd/documents/down 2.cpoi-itvcc1<server/file	This restores files from the backup source.
cpio -itveC1</server/file	provides a list of the content present in the backup device.
1.cd/documents/down 2.find.-print|cpio-dumpv /d/directory	This compies files from one to another directory . This command also verifies if all the files are successfully copied.
find /documents/down-print|wcfind/documents/down1-print|wc	If the total files in source and destination are the same we can say that both are identical.
cpio-imv/c/documents/.profile</server/file	This only restores the /server/test from the backup devices.
cpio-i".g"".d"</server/file	this restores only *.g and *.d files from the backup device.

Conclusion:

The Linux backup system has a lot of types on offer. Some administrator chooses the robust design and other select disaster recovery solution. So we have to choose the backup system according to the project or the organization's needs. Every need has a answer.we have to find it. And by finding it we can satisfy the backup system needs of the organization.