It calls standard backup software, such as vendor provided dump or GNU tar, to perform actual client dumping. There is no Macintosh support yet. Multiple clients are typically backed up in parallel to files in one or more holding disk areas. A separate tape writing process strives to keep the tape device streaming at maximum throughput. This also means it does not support dump images larger than a single tape.
New devices are usually trivial to add.
Several tape changers, stackers, and robots are supported to provide truly hands-off operation. Either the client or tape server may do software compression, or hardware compression may be used. On the client side, software compression reduces network traffic. On the server side, it reduces client CPU load. If Kerberos is available, clients may use it for authentication and dump images may be encrypted.