Bacula description
An application that lets you manage backup, recovery, and verification of computer data across a network of computers

Bacula is a set of computer programs that permit you (or the system administrator) to manage backup, recovery, and verification of computer data across a network of computers of different kinds In technical terms, Bacula is a network based backup program.

Bacula is easy to use and very efficient while still offering, many advanced storage management features that make it easy to find and recover lost or damaged files.

Who Needs Bacula?

If you are currently using a program such as tar, dump, or bru to backup your computer data, and you would like a network solution, more flexibility, or catalog services, Bacula will most likely provide the additional features you want.

However, if you are new to Unix systems or do not have offsetting experience with a sophisticated backup package, the Bacula project does not recommend using Bacula as it is much more difficult to setup and use than tar or dump.

If you want Bacula to behave like the above mentioned simple programs and write over any tape that you put in the drive, then you will find working with Bacula difficult.

Bacula is designed to protect your data following the rules you specify, and this means reusing a tape only as the last resort. It is possible to "force" Bacula to write over any tape in the drive, but it is easier and more efficient to use a simpler program for that kind of operation.

If you are running Amanda and would like a backup program that can write to multiple volumes (i.e. is not limited by your tape drive capacity), Bacula can most likely fill your needs. In addition, quite a number of Bacula users report that Bacula is simpler to setup and use than other equivalent programs.

If you are currently using a sophisticated commercial package such as Legato Networker. ARCserveIT, Arkeia, or PerfectBackup+, you may be interested in Bacula, which provides many of the same features and is free software available under the GNU Version 2 software license.