From: cornell@inoc.dl.nec.com (Cornell Kinderknecht)
Subject: Re: BudTool
Reply-To: cornell@syl.dl.nec.com
Organization: NEC USA, Corporate Network Administration Division (Dallas, TX)
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 18:03:46 GMT

I'll jump in too with some comments on BudTool.  These are all my
own comments and reflect my experience with the product.

From the products I've read about or tested or watched in action,
BudTool seemed to be the best for our needs and the most flexible.
I've found that using it has proven that that is true.  I'd still
purchase it if I had to choose again.  The best parts are that it
uses standard dump, cpio, tar for backing up and that most things
are easily configurable so you can define your own backup commands
for machines that might not support the standard formats.

I wouldn't claim it as the most wonderful product in the world that
ever existed or could exist but it is better than other choices.

I got one of the 10-tape jukeboxes (random access) with a 5Gb tape
drive in it.  It faithfully does my backups around the network.
I've set up a pretty complex schedule of backing up our machines and
am still adjusting it to get it to a more optimum schedule.

Some things that I don't like follow.  Hopefully this won't look
like I have a negative impression of the product.  I think that it's
pretty good.  These are just the areas I'd like to see improvement.

1) "Secure Retrieval" is very picky about which X-Server it can run
on.  So, in most cases in my setup, when users want to restore their
own files, they can't because of this limitation.

2) No non-bitmapped GUI.  This really stinks.  I can't manage my
backups from home over a regular dial-in connection when things need
attention or changed.  Our large servers only have vt100 sitting on
them so when I'm working on the server, I have to leave and go to a
machine where I can run X.  If you've had a major disk problem and
the machines that can run X depend on the server to operate, well,
then you can't use Budtool for restores because you don't have X.
But, since the tapes use standard dump, that's just an
inconvenience.  I've asked a few times about getting a command line
and/or curses GUI.  When I asked in fall 1991, I was told that it
was being worked on.  When I asked about a month ago, I was told
that it was being worked on.

3) I'd like a more robust method for expiring entries in the online
database.  You have quite a bit of control over how many occurences
of files are "remembered" in the database.  But, I'd like to also be
able to say something like "expire any entries that are older than
four months old" or something like that.  So far, I haven't found
any way to expire on an "age" basis.

4) I've had my history database get corrupted for unknown reasons a
few times with no hopes of getting it back (strange for a tool that
backup is it's game).

5) I don't think that the manual is arranged in a coherent manual.
When I want to find something specific, I have to really hunt and
flip through several places that just MIGHT have what I'm looking
for.  Many times, I know I've seen it mentioned in the manual but
where it was at, I just don't know.  I think part of the appendices
describing files and file formats is pretty good.


I've had pretty good luck the few times I've emailed their support
address.  Usually, I've arrived at a workaround or solution in the
couple of days lag time between when I sent the request and I
received a reply.

--- Cornell
| Cornell Kinderknecht          | Email: cornell@syl.dl.nec.com |
| CSTC/CNAD                     |  UUCP: uunet!necbsd!cornell   |
| NEC Systems Lab./NEC USA      | Phone: 214-518-3509           |
| Irving, TX (Dallas)           |   Fax: 214-518-3552           |
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.sys.sun.misc,comp.sys.sun.hardware