2 Chapter 19. AMANDA Survey Results
3 Prev Part IV. Various Information Next
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7 Chapter 19. AMANDA Survey Results
24 Refer to http://www.amanda.org/docs/survey.html for the current version of this
29 This chapter still needs much more formatting, there are many tables and lists,
30 that need to get added. Volunteers welcome. sgw, April, 2005.
34 AMANDA (Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver) is a backup system
35 freely available available in source form. For more information about AMANDA
36 visit the website http://www.amanda.org.
37 Readers of the amanda-users mailing list (approximately 1100 subscribers) were
38 asked in April of 2003 to describe their use of the backup system by filling
39 out a survey questionnaire that was posted to the mailing list weekly. Seventy
40 two (72) surveys were submitted during the month-long collection period.
41 In several postings that follow, I will report summaries of the collected data.
42 In some cases I've included comments (Surveyor's Notes) of my own reaction to
44 Later, I plan to recast these results in the form of questions and answers to
45 add to the FOM (FAQ-O-Matic) at amanda.org. Should you have any thoughts on
46 this please let me know via the list or personal email.
52 [Surveyor's Note] While the number of submitted surveys neither surprised me,
53 nor disappointed me, what did greatly disappoint me personally was this fact:
54 Of the twenty five (25) individuals most active on the list (based on number of
55 postings for 12 months), only seven (7) bothered to respond to the survey.
59 What follows is a summarization of the responses describing the organizations
61 _____________________________________________________________________________
62 |Types_of_organizations_using_AMANDA|___|_____________________________________|
63 |Category___________________________|Num|Type_________________________________|
64 |University_Department______________|20_|_____________________________________|
65 |Research_Organizations_____________|10_|medical,_scientific,_engineering,____|
66 |___________________________________|___|oceanography,_statistical,_behavioral|
67 |Internet_Service_Providers_________|5__|_____________________________________|
68 |Data Processing Services |11 |software, graphics, integration, |
69 |___________________________________|___|consulting___________________________|
70 |Manufacturers (DP) |5 |computers, electronics, |
71 |___________________________________|___|semiconductors_______________________|
72 |Manufacturers_(non-DP)_____________|4__|rubber,_chemical,_turbine,_video_____|
73 |Government_Related_________________|3__|federal,_local,_public_defender______|
74 |Service Organizations |4 |publishing, power utility, forestry, |
75 |___________________________________|___|money_management_____________________|
76 |Small_Office/Home_Office___________|6__|_____________________________________|
77 |Others |3 |natural history museum, education |
78 |___________________________________|___|charity,_national_opera_and_ballet.__|
83 [Surveyor's Note] The `Categories' were my grouping, they were not on the
84 survey. I expected more in the SOHO category.
88 [Surveyor's Note] Extent of AMANDA usage was asked on the survey. Few indicated
89 that their entire firm based their backups on AMANDA, and then only relatively
90 small companies (like JG Computing :). Thus the category is `University
91 Department' not `University'. Similarly, AMANDA is used by a groups within
92 organizations like the chemical manufacturer or computer manufacturer or
93 federal government noted above, not the entire entity. But AMANDA may have
94 helped produce the tires you are riding on, the workstation you are typing on,
95 or to collect the taxes you pay :))
96 _________________________________________________
97 |Location_of_organizations_using_AMANDA___________|
98 |1_Belgium|1_Japan_______________|2_Poland________|
99 |1_Canada_|1_Mexico______________|2_Switzerland___|
100 |1_Estonia|1_Norway______________|3_Sweden________|
101 |1_Finland|1_Portugal____________|5_Germany_______|
102 |1_France_|1_United_Arab_Emirates|5_United_Kingdom|
103 |1_Italy__|2_The_Netherlands_____|45_United_States|
108 [Surveyor's Note] The totals are greater than number of submitted surveys as
109 some respondents described multi-national installations.
113 [Surveyor's Note] Americans must be procrastinators. For a while, the number of
114 non-US submitted surveys exceeded the ones from the US.
115 _________________________________________
116 |Length_of_AMANDA_usage_at_organization|__|
117 |0_-_1_years___________________________|25|
118 |1_-_2_years___________________________|8_|
119 |2_-_3_years___________________________|13|
120 |3_-_4_years___________________________|10|
121 |4_-_5_years___________________________|8_|
122 |5_-_6_years___________________________|2_|
123 |7_-_8_years___________________________|2_|
124 |8_-_9_years___________________________|2_|
125 |9+_years______________________________|1_|
126 |10%_of_responders_>_5_years_use_______|__|
127 |33%_of_responders_>_3_years_use_______|__|
128 |50%_of_responders_>_2_years_use_______|__|
129 |33%_of_responders_<_1_year_use________|__|
131 Mean and Median are ~29 months (2.5 years)
135 [Surveyor's Note] Some really long time users of AMANDA. It must do the job.
151 Table 19.1. Operating Systems Running on AMANDA Server Hosts
152 _____________________________________
153 |FreeBSD:_______|Total_10,_including__|
154 |2______________|4-STABLE_____________|
155 |1______________|4.7__________________|
156 |1______________|4x___________________|
157 |HP-UX:_________|Total_2,_including___|
158 |1______________|10.20________________|
159 |1______________|11.00________________|
160 |Irix:__________|Total_2,_including___|
161 |1______________|6.5__________________|
162 |SCO_Openserver:|Total_1,_including___|
163 |1______________|5.0.6________________|
164 |Solaris:_______|Total_14,_including__|
165 |5______________|8____________________|
166 |1______________|8_x86________________|
167 |3______________|9____________________|
168 |Tru64:_________|Total_4,_including___|
169 |2______________|5.1__________________|
170 |Linux:_________|Total_48,_including__|
171 |13_____________|Debian_Total_________|
172 |1______________|2.4__________________|
173 |2______________|3.0__________________|
174 |3______________|Woody________________|
175 |14_____________|RedHat_Total_________|
176 |1______________|6.2__________________|
177 |2______________|7.1__________________|
178 |1______________|7.2__________________|
179 |6______________|7.3__________________|
180 |3______________|8.0__________________|
181 |1______________|8.0_with_RHNet_kernel|
182 |1______________|Slackware_Total______|
183 |1______________|7____________________|
184 |3______________|SuSE_Total___________|
185 |2______________|8.1__________________|
188 AMANDA Versions Run on Server Hosts
190 2.4.1: Total 2, including
192 2.4.2: Total 33, including
195 2.4.3: Total 21, including
199 2.4.4: Total 21, including
202 [Surveyor's Note] The percentage of older versions surprised me.
203 Shouldn't have as I just upgraded 2 months ago. If it works why fix it?
208 Number of AMANDA Clients
223 Operating Systems Run on AMANDA Clients
225 (mentions, not number of hosts)
226 AIX, total 4, including Linux (all variants), 86 total including
229 Darwin, total 1 1 2.4
231 FreeBSD total 17, including 1 potato
236 2 4-STABLE Mandrake, 1 total
238 1 4.7 RedHat, 26 total
241 HP-UX, 8 total, including 2 6.2
246 Irix, 8 total, including 4 7.3
250 MacOS X, 6 total, including 2 7.0
252 1 10.2 PowerPC SuSe, 4 total
254 NetBSD, 1 total, including Yellowdog, 1 total
256 OpenBSD, 1 total, including Tru64, 8 total, including
260 Windows, 22 total, including
261 Solaris, 39 total, including 1 95
269 SunOS, 1 total, including
272 AMANDA Versions of Run on Client Hosts
274 2.4.1, 4 total, including
276 2.4.2, 42 total, including
279 2.4.3, 30 total, including
283 2.4.4, 25 total, including
288 Installation Properties
291 Total Disk Capacity of Clients
302 Total Data Currently Stored on Clients Disks
313 Average Size of a Single Backup
327 72 use gnutar or some tar variant including:
331 50 use dump or some dump variant including:
367 Type of Compression Used
378 Brand and Model of Tape Drive Used at AMANDA Installations
380 The number of mentions of each brand is shown
381 followed by specific models where reported.
382 3 Archive, including: 2 Qualstar TLS-4200
384 Python 06408 10 Quantum, including:
386 5 Compaq, including: DLT-4000
390 SDLT320 10 Seagate, including:
394 5 Ecrix, including: CTL-96/4586N
396 DDS3 Scorpion-24/STD124000N
397 5 Exabyte, including: 13 Sony, including:
402 15 HP, including: DLT-9000
406 C6280-7000 3 Sun, including:
411 SureStor DAT-8 7 Tandberg, including:
412 Surestore Ultrium 230e DLT vs80
419 3 None, backup to disk only DAT 3400DX
420 2 Overland Data, including:
421 Loaderexpress DLT8000
423 Native Tape Capacity of the Above Drives
436 Preferred Brand of Tape
465 Tape Changers/Libraries Used at AMANDA Installations
467 [Surveyor's Note] A total of 28 of 72 respondents reported having using
468 tape changer or library. Several of those reported having more than one.
469 Surprisingly, the 28 respondents reported 26 distinct models of changer/
471 The table below shows the models reported by 28 respondents. Where multiple
472 reports for the same model existed, only one entry is show. Where the
473 multiple reports showed different configurations (eg. 1 drive vs 2 drive),
474 only the larger configuration is shown.
475 BRAND MODEL # of # of total
476 drives tapes capacity
478 ADIC FastStor DLT 1 7 245 GB
479 Compaq MSL5126 1 25 4000 GB
480 Compaq SSL2020 2 20 1000 GB
481 Dell Powervault 122T 1 8 320 GB
482 Hewlett-Packard A4845A 5 588 20000 GB
483 Hewlett-Packard C1557A 1 6 72 GB
484 Hewlett-Packard ESL9595 2 595 70000 GB
485 Hewlett-Packard MSL5026S2 2 26 4160 GB
486 Hewlett-Packard SureStore 6x40 1 6 120 GB
487 Hewlett-Packard SureStore 6x24 1 6 72 GB
488 Overland Data LXB 4120 1 10 150 GB
489 Overland Data Library Pro 1 19 1900 GB
490 Overland Data LoaderXpress 1 15 525 GB
491 Qualstar 6220 2 20 700 GB
492 Qualstar TLS-4200 2 20 2000 GB
493 Quantum DLT7000 2560 1 8 320 GB
494 Segate CTL-96/4586N 1 4 14 GB
495 Sony TSL-9000 1 8 96 GB
496 SpectraLogic Bullfrog 10000 3 40 10000 GB
497 SpectraLogic Treefrog 2000 1 15 750 GB
498 StorageTek Timberwolf 9730 2 30 1000 GB
499 Straightline Harrier/830 2 30 1500 GB
502 Sun Storedge L9 1 9 360 GB
504 Special Feature Usage
506 What follows is a summarization of the responses describing the
507 use of two special features of recent versions of AMANDA, the
508 "file:driver" to use a hard disk drive as a backup device and
509 RAIT (Redundant Array of 'Inexpensive' Tapedrives) to allow
510 mirroring or striping of backups across multiple drives.
514 Do you use the <file:driver>?
517 5 what is the <file:driver>
518 If not, do you expect to?
528 If not, do you expect to?
532 [Surveyor's Note] I was mildly surprised, and amused, by the 5 "what is the
533 <file:driver> responses. And considering those responses, but the lack of
534 similar responses to the RAIT question.
535 [Surveyor's Note] No respondent uses RAIT! Disappointing. I wonder if any
536 site is currently using this feature.
540 What follows is a summarization of the responses describing the
541 various methods to backup 'non-unix' clients, mostly PC's running
544 PC's Backed Up Using SAMBA Connections to AMANDA Clients
546 A total of 22 survey respondents (of 72) report
547 they use amanda and samba to backup PC clients.
549 10 have 2 - 5 PC clients
552 [Surveyor's Note] From these results it seems to me that amanda/samba
553 is seldom a first choice for backing up PC's. Instead it seems to be
554 used when a site has an existing amanda installation and would like
555 to implement some form of PC backup.
556 The respondents mentioned the following Operating Systems
557 were being run on the PC clients. The number is the number
558 of mentions, not number of PC's.
559 1 Windows 95 2 Windows 2000 Server
560 1 Windows 98 5 Windows XP
561 3 Windows NT 1 Windows XP Pro
562 2 Windows NT 4 1 Snap Server
564 [Surveyor's Note] Of interest to users running Lotus Domino:
565 One respondent reported using "The Open File Manager"
566 from http://www.stbernard.com to create online backups of
567 their Lotus Domino database files which then could be
568 backed up to their amanda host using samba.
570 PC's Backed Up Using Cygwin/AMANDA Client Software
572 A total of 4 survey respondents (of 72) report
573 they use a cygwin/amanda client to backup PC clients.
577 The only PC operating systems mentioned were
578 Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 Server.
580 PC's Backed Up by AMANDA Using Other Techniques
582 A variety of techniques, other than samba or cygwin,
583 were described by respondents to backup PC's
584 1. Two respondents installed an NFS server on Windows 2000
585 and then NFS mounted the PC disks on the amanda host
586 and backed them up as local file systems.
587 2. Similarly, two respondents mounted PC shares of Windows 95,
588 Windows NT, and Windows 2000 on the amanda host using 'smbmount'
589 and backed them up as local 'smbfs' file systems.
590 3. Several respondents reported they first backed up their PC's
591 (Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2000 Server)
592 to disk files on the PC's and then backed that file up using
593 amanda; presumably using samba or some file transfer technique.
594 One mentioned that the backup stream was sent directly to a
595 Linux host and backed up there as a local file.
596 The backup programs the respondents mentioned included:
597 'Windows backup program'
598 'BackupPC', a Linux opensource program
599 'Win2000 Backup Tool'
601 4. One respondent noted their firewall was a PC running linux.
602 That system was mirrored using rsync and the mirror was backed up.
604 Other Backup Techniques Mentioned
606 Five respondents described backing up systems using "non-traditional"
607 methods. These methods were used to backup systems running either
608 MacOS or Windows. They included:
609 1. MacOS 9, mounted (NFS?) onto a Linux host and backing up the mounts as
611 2. Backing up 37 MacOS 8 and MacOS 9 systems using the program Retrospect.
612 The output of Retrospect was transferred to a Linux host using ftp and
613 preserved with amanda.
614 3. Build a native amanda client on MacOS X and use hfstar instead of gnutar.
615 4. Backup 6 Windows XP hosts using a native windows amanda client.
616 5. Backup 12 Windows 2000 Server hosts using a native windows amanda client.
617 This respondent also noted their intention to switch to a cygwin/amanda
618 client in the near future.
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622 Chapter 18. AMANDA WISHLIST Home Part V. Technical Background
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