We recently ran several columns about a network back-up appliance called the Intradyn RocketVault, and we concluded by saying we really liked the product even though it “has a few rough edges.”
We criticized the setup process and the documentation and mentioned Intradyn’s claim that the RocketVault is usually “set up by a dealer so the majority of users never will have to wrestle with these issues.”
But our biggest complaint was reserved for RocketVault’s e-mail reports: “The reports are gobbledygook – unremittingly techie and full of extraneous detail that make them look more like debug traces designed by a committee of engineers who obviously had never met a live end user.”
Since we wrapped up the review the RocketVault has been sitting in the secret underground Gearhead test bunker doing its thing, and we’ve got a better appreciation for what this device really is and does.
One of the first things we discovered about the system actually had nothing to do with the RocketVault. Our hosting provider, Easycgi.com, dropped us a note to say that we were violating the terms and conditions of its service.
Of course, we had just glanced at the fine print in the company’s Terms and Conditions so we missed the bit that says, “Web space is not to be used as an image, sound, or file library, repository, or any other backup or storage solution.”
As we had tested the RocketVault’s ability to store backups on a remote FTP site using our Easycgi account, we had unwittingly run afoul of the agreement. Given that Easycgi charges for disk space and traffic, it seems odd that such restrictions, particularly specific to “backup and storage solutions,” would be placed on hosting accounts. Oh well, there’s no accounting for business decisions.
Anyway, it might be a clue to the Intradyn’s engineering philosophy that when we selected RAID Status from the management interface (something we hadn’t done before, as our machine doesn’t have RAID) we got a message that read, “Why are u [sic] here . . . you have no raid controller.” We don’t think we need to comment on this any further.
After using the RocketVault for a while we realized that unless the dealer that installs the product also is managing it, the end user is up a certain creek without a paddle. Consider this e-mail report for a new exception condition:
“FAILURE AND STRANGE DUMP SUMMARY: …
localhost. //PEPPER/MUSICLIBRARY lev 0 FAILED [disk //PEPPER/MUSICLIBRARY, all estimate failed].”
In an attempt to decode this we wrote to Intradyn asking what it all meant.
A week later, while still waiting for a response from Intradyn, the messages changed to include “out of tape” (of course, there is no tape, this is a disk-based system), “dump to tape failed” (well, it would), and “no more holding disk space.”
Ah. Now we get it. But we still haven’t had an answer from Intradyn.
It turns out that the core software RocketVault uses is an open source project called Amanda, which stands for the Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver (www.amanda.org).
Moreover, all the status messages (for example, the reports of “strange” events) that are e-mailed to users are more or less the original output of the Amanda software. In other words, Intradyn hasn’t done a whole lot of work to front-end what is a complex, technical, back-up solution. Even more problematic is the lack of documentation to help resellers and end users understand the nature of these error reports.
This raises some interesting questions about the product’s true value. While there’s no doubt that delivering the RocketVault system (hardware, software and packaging) at the product’s price was quite an engineering feat, we have to wonder whether the system provides as many new problems as it solves.
But if you want a really big concern just consider that if journalists who actually like the product can’t get a response regarding a technical issue, what chance do resellers or, worse still, end users stand in resolving their problems?
We still like the idea of the RocketVault, but until Intradyn makes the product easier to use and improves support, we will downgrade our review’s conclusion from positive to neutral.
Your productive thoughts to gearhead@gibbs.com and Gearblog is waiting for your delectation.
