This week, we are interested in the topic of backups. This is because we got our hands on a really cool appliance-style device that performs this service very cost-effectively and is suitable for workgroups, branch offices and small organizations. The device is the IntraDyn RocketVault.
Before we start on this week’s topic we have a quick rant to get out of the way: How can it be that here in 2005, when the PC is 24 years old and the human race has been developing software for going on 60 years, that people can forget about decent error handling and status reports? Is it too much to ask that when something goes wrong and the software tries to tell us what happened, we don’t get messages that make the federal tax code look like plain English?
For example, check out a Gearblog critique of a blog editor called Ecto, which is a classic demonstration of lousy error reporting.
This is not a new complaint from us, but it seems that software developers and/or their management are progressively more detached from real-world issues such as status and error reporting. And don’t get us started on the topic of documentation.
Anyway, this week, we are interested in the topic of backups. This is because we got our hands on a really cool appliance-style device that performs this service very cost-effectively and is suitable for workgroups, branch offices and small organizations. The device is the IntraDyn RocketVault .
RocketVault
RocketVault is available in three form factors: A small box (8 inches by 7.5 inches by 11 inches) or as standard 1U or 2U 19-inch rack-mount boxes – the size depends on the storage capacity, which ranges from 240M bytes to 2T bytes.
Let’s cut to the chase: How does the RocketVault work? Simple. You tell it which SMB/CIFS resources you want it to copy, what kind of copy to make and when the copy should be done – that’s all there is to it. That, and a few million details.
So let’s review some of the details: First, what is SMB? We’re sure you all actually know but for those who might have forgotten the details or aren’t really Windows peeps, SMB stands for Server Message Block. This is a really terrible name for a client/server, mainly request-response protocol designed for sharing files, printers, serial ports, named pipes and mail slots on networks.
According to SMB File Sharing URI Scheme, Server Message Block protocol “was created in the 1980s by Barry Feigenbaum at IBM. It was later extended by various contributors at 3Com, IBM, Intel and Microsoft.” Bluntly put, SMB has grown long whiskers and has bad breath, but it works reasonably well and is now cross-platform.
SMB clients can connect to servers using NetBIOS over TCP/IP (RFC1001 and RFC1002, which are called – depending on which way the wind is blowing – NBT or NetBT by Microsoft, or RFCNB by others), NetBIOS over DECnet (a trip down memory lane there for those who used Pathworks), NetBEUI (NBF in Microsoft-speak), or IPX/SPX (ah, those were the days). There’s also SMB directly carried by TCP/IP, otherwise called SMB over “native TCP” or “naked transport.”
For a riveting explanation of all the vagaries of SMB and how the protocol works check out Samba.org’sWhat is SMB?” page.
In case you’ve been living in a cave and not interacting with other human beings – for example, if you work for the FCC – then we should explain what Samba is: It’s “an open source/free software suite that provides seamless file and print services to SMB/CIFS clients. Samba is freely available under the GNU General Public License.”
CIFS defined
But we wrote SMB/CIFS didn’t we? CIFS is another Microsoft-originated protocol. CIFS is really SMB updated, which came about because Microsoft implemented SMB in a manner that might be described as haphazard, so a fix was needed.
According to the Samba meta FAQ: “The initial pressure for Microsoft to document their current SMB implementation came from the Samba team, who kept coming across things on the wire that Microsoft either didn’t know about or hadn’t documented anywhere (even in the source code to Windows NT). Then Sun came out with their WebNFS initiative, designed to replace FTP for file transfers on the Internet. . . . Some hasty revisions were made and an Internet Draft for the Common Internet Filesystem was released.”
We’re out of space. More next week. You know the protocol: gearhead@gibbs.com. And don’t forget Gearblog.
