Most SCSI and some ATAPI tape drives provide a high-speed positioning mechanism to greatly reduce the time needed to restore a few files from
tape. BackupEDGE
includes full support for this on all platforms. BackupEDGE 01.01.08
provides three separate Fast File Restore interfaces to suit whatever task is at hand. The
simplest of the three is our command-line interface, which allows you to name a tape resource (local or remote), specify which files you'd like to restore on the command line. The utility then handles all the
details of looking up the location of each file in the tape content database
, and performs a highly optimized Fast File Restore procedure to restore your data. This interface works even if the tape drive is remote. Our second interface to Fast File Restore is through our character-based EDGEMENU
program. By navigating our intuitive menu system, you can restore files from quickly from any tape drive to any machine with BackupEDGE installed (not just the one on which you are running
EDGEMENU). You need not even be concerned that you are using Fast File Restore in this case; the "slow" and "fast" options if the interface are
identically easy to use. Both local and remote devices are fully supported by EDGEMENU. Both of these are tape-centric
interfaces; if you have the tape from which you would like to restore, and you know the names of the files, these tools are probably right for the job.
However, sometimes you want to browse all the tape databases you've created to find the file(s) you want. Our point-and-click fast file restore GUI
displays a file-tree view of the contents of each tape you have indexed on the local machine (this relies on our tape content databases), allows you to see properties of individual files, select files for restore, and actually
restore them to their original location (or somewhere else, if you'd like). All the details of finding the files on tape is hidden from the user by a highly efficient algorithm. Once you have selected the
files to restore, our graphical Fast File Restore Interface prompts you to insert the correct tape(s) and proceeds with the restore. BackupEDGE
actually measures the overhead of switching into and out of the
high-speed positioning mode for your particular tape drive, and uses this information during restore operations. Specifically, BackupEDGE orders the files to be restored by tape position, and decides
for each file whether it is faster to use high-speed positioning or simply read-and-discard data. The result is an incredibly fast
restore that never requires more than a single pass across the tape (and even then, only if you request the last file!). It never needs to rewind the tape between files, nor
does it switch into "slow" mode for files after the first unless doing so actually speeds up the operation! BackupEDGE
also deals with issues such as hard and soft links
during restore. You have the option of automatically restoring link targets as well as the links, without having to specifically select the targets. For operating systems that include many symbolic links, this can greatly reduce the time needed to restore files, and significantly lessen the chance of restoring the wrong data.
We also have a Press Release on the subject. |
