Customer Reviews

The Backup Book: Disaster Recovery from Desktop to Data Center

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The book starts with an educative chapter of how disastrous various data losses can be, and how to calculate the costs of these losses. Then it analyzes ways of protection from different failures at various levels: documents, applications, OS, Storage, CPUs, network, power and building.

Throughout the book there are references to various products and services of different vendors. When the author recommends certain software, there are attempts to suit three operating systems: Windows, OS X and UNIX.

In the chapter about storage corruption, there is an interesting section about SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology). I personally use SMART to monitor temperature of my HDDs. But I've found an inaccuracy in the description of the differences between SCSII and IDE. The author claims that "OS just says to SCSII 'Give me a file', and SCSII delivers it, whereas with IDE the OS deals with fragmentation of files". This is incorrect. SCSII doesn't' work on file level, and OS deals with fragmentation at SCSII as well.

The information in this book corresponds year 2000 approximately, it mentions IDE size limit of 137GB and speed limit of 33 MBps (Ultra DMA Mode 2).

The drawback of this book is lack of coverage of collaboration tools like CVS or Subversion as very efficient backup tools. These tools are very easy to use at client side, although their server side is somewhat difficult to install.

The intended audience of the book is very broad, and the style is very simple so even a computer novice can understand this book.

The Backup Book should be required reading for all Executives and IT Managers. The technical information is given in an entertaining way for a business audience. The business aspects of company data are explained to the techie crowd along with the necessary technical information

And the writing style makes it a page turner.

Buy it for yourself or the person at your company that changes the backup tapes every night. You will sleep better.

This is one of the few backup books that isn't slanted toward a single product (such as a VERITAS book, or an EMC book). Covering what the authors found to be "the most prominent problems in the network today," this book focuses on basic solutions for the problems that we all face in the real world.

And it is written in a style that is part straight to the point and part humorous. The only thing that I would suggest adding is a set of powerpoint slides for training (maybe next time guys?).

Is this book an in-depth book on every subject? No. This is not the be-all-to-end-all SAN backup book. Or RAID book. Or the "best of breed" for anything that it covers. But I don't think that the authors meant it to be a drill-down-to-the-bottom type of book. It covers what it needs to cover to suggest the right solution. And for most of us, that's just fine.

But if I had to grab one book when I head out to think through backup problems, this is the book to grab.

An incredibly thorough, accurate and well thought-out reference guide written by the top talent in the industry. The Backup Book is an excellent resource for learning the basic concepts, technologies and techniques used in implementing successful backup strategies. It includes detailed information about the leading backup software products for both Windows and Mac environments. I refer to it all the time and it hasn't let me down once.

A number of things set The Backup Book apart from others:

1. The writing is fantastic -- friendly and easy to follow.
2. The examples are real -- the authors have great experiences we can learn from (without having to go through it ourselves!)
3. The book is complete -- they cover everything from determining which data is critical to a variety of methods one can use to protect the data.

I also like how the authors interlace the experiences of "field editors" -- other folks who know what they're talking about -- throughout the book.

If you're involved in network management and/or data security, you need to read this book.

This book is out of this world. It explains backup and disaster recovery such that one can actually understand it! The writer's style is funny and conversational, and it really helps you get through what would otherwise be rather, err...dry material... Put down your incomprehensible Backup Exec manuals, and Microsoft disaster recovery whitepapers. This one gives it to you in english, *and* gives you a worksheet at the end that is a perfect roadmap to actually getting these systems in place.

This is a difficult book to rate. If you look at it compared to what else is out there on this subject, its 4 stars. However, if you rate it as to whether it achieved the goals it set for itself, I would rate it a 2 star book. The essential problem is the book can not figure out where to place its emphasis. I complete agree with R Earl "unixnut"'s review on this point. No one can expect to cover the breadth of this book's table of contents effectively. This is because no one author can know it all. That being said, professionals interested in backup should buy it in any case, just because there are so few titles in this area. For people who want more of a practical how to guide devoted to PC backup, check out How to Backup Your Windows Computer on DVD. Implementing Backup and Recovery is better for people interested in corporate backup.

Don't let the page count scare you. This book gives you all the information you need to protect yor company, your data and your job.

It is a must read for anyone that wants to know the why things happen not just how to fix them.

Bravo!

A very thorough, accurate and well thought-out reference guide. Excellent for learning the basic concepts, technologies and techniques used in implementing successful backup strategies. Includes detailed information about the leading backup software for both Windows and Mac environments.

If you are an IT professional and you are responsible for the security and integrity of data, you must have this book! It could save you save a lot of headache, and possibly your job!

This book has something for every IT manager, it doesn't matter whether your site is small or large, Mac or Windows centric or whether you have a corrupt document or a database, this book has something for you.

Keep this book by your side. Read it. Learn from it. I know I do. I keep a copy on my desk. This book contains the compiled wisdom of people who've lost battles, but have learned from these catastrophes.

I'm a policy fanatic and the stuff in this book will help you formulate rock solid policies for your organization. With policies in place, you will be better able to deal with disasters WHEN they strike!

I believe it's a great resource to help justify appropriation requests for new infrastructure gear or resources. The investment for this tome is nil but the benefits priceless. Do something smart and get this book.