I'm working on a commercial project that would benefit immensely from the use of rsync. However, I cannot convince management that rsync is a worthy tool due to the rote "it's shareware, it's not supported" FUD. Are there any documented, corportate users of rsync? Testimonials? In short, how do I drag this risk-averse group out of the FTP age into the rsync present? /p
jw schultz (jw@pegasys.ws) said:> Ask them about the last time they called customer support. > Then point out the number of developers they have or can > hire who could "fix" rsync using the source code IF it ever > "breaks".I've tried logic and reason. Both were defeated by their COBOL / Mainframe reality distortion fields. I'm hoping to overwhelm them with facts and anecdotes. /p
Hello, Paul Nendick wrote:> > I'm working on a commercial project that would benefit immensely from > the use of rsync. However, I cannot convince management that rsync is a > worthy tool due to the rote "it's shareware, it's not supported" FUD. > > Are there any documented, corportate users of rsync? Testimonials? In > short, how do I drag this risk-averse group out of the FTP age into the > rsync present?Looks like you have Dilbertian managers! I can propose a billion-dollar NASA project called Chandra as a testimonial (OK, most of the money does not go into the archive!). We have a primary archive with 1.4 TB and more than 5 million files. We use rsync to maintain two separate mirrors, which contain specific parts of the data (respectively 0.7 and 0.4 TB). Using rsync reduced manual operations to almost nothing, which allows us to synchronize the mirrors in close-to-real time. An enormous advantage is that rsync automatically propagates changes on already transferred files, so we do not need to fix things 3 times. In addition, some of these files are well over 100MB, and just a few bytes have to cross the ocean to get them fixed. These files contain, by the way, some of the finest observations in astrophysics, and have therefore a huge scientific importance. Also, (I know this won't work...) rsync is better supported than most (all?) commercial softwares. There is an active mailing list, frequent releases, and a very large user base. Note also that rsync is genuine free software. I would have much less confidence in a shareware. Good luck! Stephane
On 18 Jul 2002, Paul Nendick <pnendick@abnamro.com> wrote:> I'm working on a commercial project that would benefit immensely from > the use of rsync. However, I cannot convince management that rsync is a > worthy tool due to the rote "it's shareware, it's not supported" FUD. > > Are there any documented, corportate users of rsync? Testimonials? In > short, how do I drag this risk-averse group out of the FTP age into the > rsync present?I work for HP. We use it extensively, indeed so much so that it would probably be impossible to count the number of users. If you want support, I'm sure HP's consulting group would be interested in helping you out and very capable. If you do not already have an account manager there, I can find somebody good for you to speak to. They can probably produce a nice pointyhead-friendly Powerpoint slideshow about the strengths of open source :-) rsync is a mature product, with many established users. As other people have said, it is the de-facto standard for filesystem mirroring. rsync's stability means that new features do not go in very fast, however there is active work on extending it to new areas and capabilities, including xdelta, Unison, librsync, rzync, lift, pysync, and others. As far as I know, there is no new work going into FTP as a protocol, although people are doing some nice work on implementation, such as ProFTPd. So you need not fear rsync leading you into a dead end. One of the nice things about open source is that you are not locked in to a single provider. If, at some time during the project, you decide you want to pay for commercial support, you can do so. If you do pay for commercial support and it turns out that you're not happy with the company you can change. rsync is not shareware anyhow; it is Free Software, or, if you prefer, Open Source Software. Shareware is sometimes the worst of both worlds -- half-hearted support, but no opportunity to fix things yourself or seek alternative help. I don't know what FTP implementation you're using, but I suspect most of them will be either open source, shareware (on Windows), or a thin veneer of Unix-vendor gloss on an old BSD implementation. A good way to proceed might be to post a brief description of what it is you want to do to the list. I'm sure several people will be able to tell you "that's easy", "that's possible", or "rsync's not the right tool." Drawing on the freely-available resource of experienced users is probably the best thing you can do to reduce risk. -- Martin
The biggest example I've seen is CPT (Content Promotion Tool), used by IBM
for their own, as well as their hosted, websites. It uses rsync to copy
data from inside the firewall to a limited-availability rw DFS replica in
the DMZ, which is then released to the ro replicas actually exposed to the
world.
Tim Conway
tim.conway@philips.com
303.682.4917 office, 3039210301 cell
Philips Semiconductor - Longmont TC
1880 Industrial Circle, Suite D
Longmont, CO 80501
Available via SameTime Connect within Philips, n9hmg on AIM
perl -e 'print pack(nnnnnnnnnnnn,
19061,29556,8289,28271,29800,25970,8304,25970,27680,26721,25451,25970),
".\n" '
"There are some who call me.... Tim?"
Paul Nendick <pnendick@abnamro.com>
Sent by: rsync-admin@lists.samba.org
07/18/2002 02:29 PM
Please respond to " Paul C. Nendick "
To: rsync@lists.samba.org
cc: (bcc: Tim Conway/LMT/SC/PHILIPS)
Subject: rsync anti-FUD
Classification:
I'm working on a commercial project that would benefit immensely from
the use of rsync. However, I cannot convince management that rsync is a
worthy tool due to the rote "it's shareware, it's not
supported" FUD.
Are there any documented, corportate users of rsync? Testimonials? In
short, how do I drag this risk-averse group out of the FTP age into the
rsync present?
/p
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