[wplug] Fw: BSDCan 2005 - live network backup announcement

[Chris Romano]

On 4/28/05, Bill Moran <wmoran at potentialtech.com> wrote:
> 
> This is neat.  My thought is, "Why just laptops?  Why not do this with
> mission-critical servers as well?
> 
> Begin forwarded message:
> From: "Dan Langille" <dan at langille.org>
> 
> >
> > Hello folks,
> >
> > As promised, here is an overview of the no-longer-secret new feature.
> >
> > It's now on kernel trap.  http://kerneltrap.org/node/5058
> >
> > *For Immediate Release*
> >
> >
> > There is little more devastating than failure of your laptop's hard
> > drive - especially when working away from home base. Now imagine the
> > ability to automatically maintain complete and up-to-date duplicates
> > of laptop hard disk drives – even while working remotely around the
> > world.
> >
> > At BSDCan 2005, a new Canadian-developed technology will be
> > premiered, demonstrating the ability to maintain a "live mirror" of
> > critical data from remotely-connected computer systems. The
> > connection between the remote laptop (client) and the mirror host
> > (server) is opportunistic – making use of Internet connectivity when
> > it is available to synchronize the remote laptop and the mirror host.
> > This facility runs as an unattended background process without
> > operator intervention.
> >
> > Developed by a noted NetBSD developer, known as "der Mouse" in the
> > BSD world, the facility is being released in full source code format
> > to the public domain – without software license restrictions, and
> > freely available to all. The premier functionality released runs on
> > the NetBSD Operating System, and is file system independent. Ports to
> > other operating systems are expected to occur very quickly.
> >
> > This live mirroring facility intelligently monitors blocks of the
> > client's disk drive storage, and any blocks that have changed are
> > sent to the server across the Internet ... as soon as a connection
> > becomes available. Data transfers are encrypted, and the bandwidth
> > needed is surprisingly small – as once the facility is initialized,
> > only incremental block level differences are needed to maintain the
> > server-hosted copy. The disk mirroring facility happens automatically
> > – at airport wireless access points, client-site guest network
> > connections and anywhere your laptop can find a connection to it's
> > home base.
> >
> > On May 13-14 at the University of Ottawa will be hosting BSDCan 2005.
> > BSDCan 2005 is a technical conference for developers, users and
> > people interested in the technology behind today's network connected
> > world.
> >
> > -30-
> >
> > FMI:
> >
> > Live remote disk mirroring facility:
> >
> > email: der Mouse <mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA
> > <mailto:mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>>
> >
> >
> > BSDCan 2005:
> >
> > email: Dan Langille <info at bsdcan.org <mailto:info at bsdcan.org>>
> >
> > web: http://www.bsdcan.org/2005/
> >

Wow that is great.  I have seen apps like this before but nothing that
is FOSS.  I was starting to look into this for my company.  We have a
few sales people that need funx like this.  I was leaning towards
Novell's iFolder.  I might just hold out and wait until this hits some
other OSes.  I can see this being great not only for roaming users but
for servers as well, like Bill suggests. This can give SMBs a great
backup solution.  They can put the mirrored server in a data center
and get instant remote backups for their servers.  I can't wait to see
how it progresses.  Thanks for the heads up Bill.

Chris