Barry Lustig wrote:

Do any of the available backup solutions support a "dump to disk mode" like amanda? Amanda uses the disk on the local backup machine as the cache. After the backup completes to disk amanda dumps that file to tape. This takes care of the streaming issues. This of course would be a problem with large NetApp filesystems. But imagine if the packages (veritas, legato, workstation solutions, etc.) took the incoming data stream and wrote it as configurable chunks (100Mb, 1GB, etc.) to disk. They could then flush those chunks to tape.

Hmm, I recall reading that CommVault Systems was working on a product which migrated (HSM-style) older files to optical jukebox, and thence to tape (via backup system), and made all the migrated stuff look like a really huge "snapshots" area:

http://www.commvault.com/net_apps.html

It's not _exactly_ what the original poster was talking about, but it seems similar in feel. And automatic.

Anyone had any experience with this product? It would seem pretty cool, especially since it looks like they have this integrated with Unix (NFS) and NT file servers, database servers, etc.

Regards,