CentOS - May 2013 - Looking for a CentOS-friendly online backup company

Hi all.

   We've got a lot of customers running CentOS 5 and 6 servers. We've 
been asked by many to provide backup, which is something we don't want 
to do in house. So we started looking for backup companies to partner 
with. The problem is that the ones we've found who support RHEL won't 
support CentOS.

   So does anyone know of an online backup company that _will_ support 
CentOS (and Windows)?

   Any pointers will be much appreciated!

digimer

-- 
Digimer
Papers and Projects: https://alteeve.ca/w/
What if the cure for cancer is trapped in the mind of a person without 
access to education?

Digimer wrote:
> Hi all.
>
>    We've got a lot of customers running CentOS 5 and 6 servers.
We've
> been asked by many to provide backup, which is something we don't want
> to do in house. So we started looking for backup companies to partner
> with. The problem is that the ones we've found who support RHEL
won't
> support CentOS.
>
>    So does anyone know of an online backup company that _will_ support
> CentOS (and Windows)?
Don't know of any... but ask to talk to an SE (sales engineer), rather
than just sales. I'd assume they know *nothing* of distros.

<shakes head> I once started a support call with Sun/Oracle *shudder*, and
the engineer got all huffy, they didn't support CentOS (it was a hardware
problem), and he obviously didn't know anything about it. I escalated, and
got another engineer (and the story goes downhill from there).

       mark

Rsync.net ?
10.5.2013 21.47 "Digimer" <lists at alteeve.ca> kirjoitti:
> Hi all.
>
>    We've got a lot of customers running CentOS 5 and 6 servers.
We've
> been asked by many to provide backup, which is something we don't want
> to do in house. So we started looking for backup companies to partner
> with. The problem is that the ones we've found who support RHEL
won't
> support CentOS.
>
>    So does anyone know of an online backup company that _will_ support
> CentOS (and Windows)?
>
>    Any pointers will be much appreciated!
>
> digimer
>
> --
> Digimer
> Papers and Projects: https://alteeve.ca/w/
> What if the cure for cancer is trapped in the mind of a person without
> access to education?
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>

Am Fri, 10 May 2013 14:46:23 -0400
schrieb Digimer <lists at alteeve.ca>:
> Hi all.
> 
>    We've got a lot of customers running CentOS 5 and 6 servers.
We've
> been asked by many to provide backup, which is something we don't
> want to do in house. So we started looking for backup companies to
> partner with. The problem is that the ones we've found who support
> RHEL won't support CentOS.
> 
>    So does anyone know of an online backup company that _will_
> support CentOS (and Windows)?
> 
>    Any pointers will be much appreciated!

Have you looked at crashplan?

I haven't really tried it, but it would be something I'd look at.

On 05/10/2013 02:50 PM, Reindl Harald wrote:
>
>
> Am 10.05.2013 20:46, schrieb Digimer:
>> We've got a lot of customers running CentOS 5 and 6 servers.
We've
>> been asked by many to provide backup, which is something we don't
want
>> to do in house. So we started looking for backup companies to partner
>> with. The problem is that the ones we've found who support RHEL
won't
>> support CentOS
>
> what needs to be "supported" - CentOS is *binary compatible*
>
> what sorts of "backup"
> a backup can be anything, data, OS-images, snapshots, rsync....
>
> if it is only *data* simply setup a SAN storage with a virtual
> machine per customer and stup rsnapshot at your own, if it
> is not liked inhouse rent a rack whereever
>
I know that it's binary compatible and that the software that works for 
RHEL will work for CentOS. What I mean by "supported" is a company who
will see the host OS is CentOS and not throw up their hands and say 
"sorry, not supported!".

My fear is that, a year from now, something will go wrong and the 
company we choose won't help us. We're not a backup company and we have 
no interest in becoming one, either. So we want to find a company to 
partner with who will see "CentOS" and still help us. So in short,
this
is a political, not technical question.

As for what to backup; We're just looking for application data backup, 
not OS data.

-- 
Digimer
Papers and Projects: https://alteeve.ca/w/
What if the cure for cancer is trapped in the mind of a person without 
access to education?

On 05/10/2013 05:46 PM, Reindl Harald wrote:
>
>
> Am 10.05.2013 23:41, schrieb Digimer:
>> Because CentOS works just fine for them. They've used it going back
to
>> CentOS 4 days without issue. Suggesting they rebuild long-in-production
>> servers for the sake of a backup company is not going to fly.
>
> who needs to rebuild?
> replace the release-packages and you are mostly done
>
> that is what "binary compatible" means
> the only changes in CentOS are release name and logos / trademarks
>
>> That it is someone else's money doesn't change my
responsibility to
>> deliver the best bang for the buck
>
> that is a differnet story as above
>
> after years of expierience i would recommend let them alone
> in case of service you can and will not provide at your own
> because you will be resposible for any mistake from the
> customers point of view becasue you recommended whatever
As I mentioned initially; We don't do backups and we don't want to do 
it, either. That said, it's a service our clients are (strongly) asking 
for.

We're not looking for a company to simply recommend, but one to partner 
with or become a reseller of. The goal is that the client maintains a 
single point of contact, us, and we pay a proper backup company for the 
support and service.

-- 
Digimer
Papers and Projects: https://alteeve.ca/w/
What if the cure for cancer is trapped in the mind of a person without 
access to education?

On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 12:16 AM, Digimer <lists at alteeve.ca>
wrote:
>
>    So does anyone know of an online backup company that _will_ support
> CentOS (and Windows)?
>
>    Any pointers will be much appreciated!
>
Not an online but an in-house solution.   Symantec Netbackup (or
whatever it is called) apparently supports a whole bunch of Linux
distros (as client). Recently, I deployed a CentOS LAMP server (guest
in Windows Hyper-V) and the data center guys installed the CentOS
client in it for daily backups.

Perhaps some online vendor who is using the same in their infra can
support CentOS.

-- 
Arun Khan
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