Microsoft Word Hardware Reconfiguration Methodology V final2

Tool summary

It is important to determine the capabilities of the various tools examined within this section. The following provides a brief summary for these tools:

1. 
   Will data be sent over the network for backing up to a remote system? If so, then RSH, SSH, and Netcat can be used for sending and receiving network data.
   

2. 
   Is the backup to be multivolume? If so, then Tar, Cpio, and Dump can be used. DD can only be made multivolume capable through scripts.
   

3. 
   Is data encryption required? If so, then GPG can be used.
   

4. 
   Is network encryption required? If so, then GPG or SSH can be used.
   

5. 
   Is data compression required? If so, then Gzip, Zip, or Bzip2 can be used.
   

6. 
   Is network compression required? If so, then SSH, Gzip, Zip, or Bzip2 can be used.
   

7. 
   Is piping required? If so, then Tar, Cpio, Dump, and DD can be piped into any and all of these programs: RSH, Zip, SSH, Netcat, GPG, Gzip, and Bzip2.
   

8. 
   Is error checking required? If so, then Tar, Cpio, and Dump support some form of error checking. DD can perform error checking using scripts.
   

9. 
   Is the operating system to be backed up? If so, Dump or DD should be used.
   

10. 
    Are user and application data to backed up? If so, then Tar, Cpio, or Dump can be used.
    

11. 
    Is the dataset large? Then Dump or DD should be used.
    

12. 
    Is the dataset small? Then Tar or Cpio should be used.
    

13. 
    Are incremental or differential backup required? If so, then Tar, Cpio, or Dump can be used.
    

14. 
    Is error checking is required? Tar, Cpio, or Dump perform some form of error checking.
    

15. 
    Are there locked files? Are there volatile files? If so, then Dump should be able to handle them.
    

16. 
    Are applications and user data in use? Tar, Cpio, or Dump should be able to handle this.
    

8. Resource availability

It is important to determine the availability of various backup resources prior to performing any backup-related action. This will help to better plan and schedule resources. Consider the following:

1. 
   Are centralized backup servers available? If so, a backup server can be used to centralize and facilitate backups from one or more systems. However, the more systems that stream data to a centralized system at the same time will cause a network bandwidth slowdown.
   

2. 
   Does the centralized system have more than one backup device? If so, then more than one system can backup its data at the same time. However, performing multiple backups and/or restorations at the same time may be slower and more tedious to carry out.
   

3. 
   Is the backup to occur over the network onto a remote system? If so, can the network support the backup system’s required network bandwidth? If not, then multiple network adapters with different network connections will be needed to handle the network load.
   

4. 
   Are spare backup systems and devices always available? This is important if a backup fails due to hardware. Having extra remote systems (if they are used) and extra backup devices will facilitate and speed up the backup process should a hardware failure occur.
   

5. 
   Is there enough spare media? Every so often media is found to be defective, even new media.
   

6. 
   Is the amount of data to be backed up very large? If so, then it may be more appropriate to backup the system’s various filesystems simultaneously onto multiple backup devices (local and/or remote devices) to speed up the process.
   

7. 
   Are backup operators available to intervene if backups should fail or require a specific action to be taken? This is unlikely to be found in small organizations; however, large organizations often have backup operators 24x7.
   

8. 
   Are the archival devices capable of handling multivolume backups? Robotic tape libraries can handle multivolume backups. If the device is not a tape library then a multivolume backup can be performed using scripts that divide a backup among multiple backup devices.
   

9.