Backup

I don't normally find value in general topic books that use a specific product to illustrate concepts; however, this book is an exception. The authors thoroughly cover all of the issues associated with back-up and recovery, including those related to business continuity, disaster recovery, and the affect that back-up and recovery has on service and availability.

Given the pervasiveness of both UNIX (including Linux), and Windows, I like the fact that both operating systems are addressed in the book. I am firmly in the UNIX camp, but it's nearly impossible to find a Linux or UNIX shop that doesn't have at least some critical applications running on Windows servers.

Of course, if you use Netbackup this book is going to be all the more valuable; however, if you don't, do not let the fact that the authors base the concepts and examples on this product dissuade you from buying this book. It is one of the best books on back-up and recovery issues and challenges, regardless of vendor solution used.

If you are setting up a new backup and recovery environment, or if you are maintaining an existing strategy, this book is a must read. Not only does it walk you through backup and recovery process from start to finish, it helps you to understand that there is more required to backup - and especially recovery - than simply performing daily backups.

This book is a must have for the person doing backup and recovery in an enterprise environment. It cuts through all the chase and gets right to the point. A great book for the novice or expert!!!! I've been working in the backup and recovery areana for over 7 years and this book already has some worn out pages.

I bought this book on a whim cuz i thought it was a unique topic. i ended up learning alot. definitely a good purchase. the only chapter i could have done without was the virus chapter.

I am amazed at how this book gets to the details of everything that can go wrong with an NT network. I immediately noticed some areas that were at risk on my own systems. This book got me thinking in the right direction. I manage a group of IS professionals and we set up a meeting to specifically discuss the findings in this book.

The volume of relevant background information contained in this book is impressive. What is even more helpful, however, are the detailed instructions for what to do in case of failure. I never knew there were so many options for recovery. There are many tips included to help you avoid certain modes of failure, as well as suggestions on how to take a proactive approach in dealing with the inevitable.

No Backup: A Female Agent's Life
in the FBI©
by
Rosemary N. Dew and Pat Pape

A fascinating read which combines the personal experiences of Special Agent Rosemary Dew who spent thirteen years with the FBI. She was in a unique position to gain insight and has produced a detailed analysis of the culture of the FBI and has delved into the reasons behind some of it's more infamous failures. The overall thrust of the book suggests that the FBI's problems reside within the culture of the organization. Rosemary Dew contends that the FBI will continue to be plagued by embarassing episodes,e.g., the mole in its counter intelligence section who was able to escape detection for decades. Approximately half of the book covers one embarassing episode after another which calls into question the ability of the FBI to learn from its own mistakes. In the world described by the author...the agents who warned of suspicious events before 9-11 might have been taken more seriously if they had been working out of a higher status office like New York City. The book is not just a critical analysis of the Bureau but cites specific episodes from the author's life as an agent. She uses these illustrations as a backdrop to suggest why many of the recent problems within the Bureau are the result of long standing practices and norms where the preservation of one's own job within the organization takes priority and common sense seems to be in rather short supply. She describes in painful detail... blatant examples of racism, sexism and harassment which would not be tolerated in modern law enforcement agencies. The FBI is portrayed as a bureacracy which has lost its moral compass while at the same time trying to occupy a higher moral position through a masterful public relations campaign. Rosemary Dew has gone to great lengths to open up her own life and will probably take some heat from those who are sure that the Bureau can do 'No' wrong. Definitely, worth the read but disturbing. There have been other books which have exposed the FBI but this one is unique.

Dr. Peter Kassebaum

If you backup your Oracle database, this book must be in your bookshelf!

I am a student of Dr. Morris-Murphy at Valencia Community College in Orlando Florida and currently studing under the Doctor as I prepare for the last of my Oracle DBA certification exams.
This, her second book matches the style of her presentation of Oracle Backup & Recovery in class; clear, precise and simple to understand. Each of the 15 chapters contains Hands On Assignments for students to get realtime experience on recover and backup of lost information.
After using this book during her class I highly recommend that DBA's and DBD's or students studying Oracle9i who are preparing for the certification exam and should have this book sitting next to their Sybex Backup & Recovery book.
Because SQL/Plus and Backup & Recovery are the two hardest aspects of Oracle to grasp these two books by Dr Murphy are a must, I recommend very strongly that anybody who is in the field of Oracle9i or Oracle19Gg should place a copy of both books on their shelf for reference

This is *THE* Computer System backup book. It contains all the basics of why you want to backup computer systems, plus many of the real world experience details. It is written from a Unix perspective, but is still applicable to Windows and other non-Unix environments.

I've been using this book as a general guide for several years now. It was a book I watched work it's way through the O'Reilly system from first announcement to general release. I bought it when it first came out. I have not been disappointed in it.

Many people think of computer system backups as a dry old musty topic of interest to nobody in particular. But 9/11 showed how important good disaster recovery planning and procedures could be to a business.

Some of the specifics are now a little out of date, but not by leaps and bounds. It is still very good for its core reason for being - Backups. It is very much less out of date than other computer books on the market today.

I have been dealing with large-scale computer system backups and disaster recovery for large employers for years... and I still consult this book regularly to make sure have not missed anything important. It covers all the topics you need.

Curtis Preston has put years of experience and a great deal of heart into UB&C. It's an O'Reilly, so it's got breadth and depth. I particularly enjoyed the chapters on backing up networks with the free tool, AMANDA, and on bare-metal recovery techniques for Linux. There's also a chapter on high availability system/network architecture, which I didn't anticipate from the book's title.

This is a fun book which I effortlessly read from cover to cover, because the author has presented backup and recovery as both a metaphor for life and as life itself. Curtis explains how to prepare for the day your wife is having a baby at the hospital across the street from the office where your 24/7 Unix network has crashed and come back up in need of data recovery! I like having a guy like that on my bookshelf.

Even though I was still very new to Linux/UNIX, this book was able to help me create a fully automated backup routine as well as how to restore from those backups. I found the book very easy to read and not at all dry.

Im only on page 56 so far, yet I have no doubt that this book tells me everything that I want to know about RMAN. All I can say is that if you have any doubts about RMAN, read this book.

Ive come back to continue my review: Ive now finished the book.
OK, my opinion has not changed since page 56, this book has absolutely everything, Robert/Mathew have got you covered.... completely!

You can also get replies to your emails, the address is in the book and your emails are answered.

Yes, I agree with other reviewers, what a gem this book is.

Really good intro to RMAN. Works well read in sequence, but if you aren't convinced, I recommend checking out pg. 232 which puts everything together (titled "RMAN Workshop: Get Your Database Backed Up"). I also like the little jokes here and there that keep you awake and smiling...

I was trying to learn Rman from manuals and metalink articles from long time. But I could never learn enough and felt confident from these bits and bytes of info. I was skeptical about this book. But to my surprise, this is one of those rare gems. In two words - very practical.

Dump your shell scripts on hot backups and start implementing Rman. I also saw the other book from the same author on oracle 9i new features - an excellent piece.

This book would have been great if it was 60% of the pages with the fluff and jokes cut out. Backup is a serious subject, and a few jokes may be cute, but they pervade the book to the point of becoming annoying. There is also too much time spent on the bare basics - it sometimes felt like the author had a page quota to meet.
That said, it appears to be the only game in town covering the subject to this breadth and depth, and when the author cuts to the chase, he clearly has a good understanding of the problems and soulutions, with only a few technical errors (amusingly, the errors are just where the author appears to be trying to impress the reader with the depth of their knowledge.)

A number of things set The Backup Book apart from others:

1. The writing is fantastic -- friendly and easy to follow.
2. The examples are real -- the authors have great experiences we can learn from (without having to go through it ourselves!)
3. The book is complete -- they cover everything from determining which data is critical to a variety of methods one can use to protect the data.

I also like how the authors interlace the experiences of "field editors" -- other folks who know what they're talking about -- throughout the book.

If you're involved in network management and/or data security, you need to read this book.

Can't believe how in depth this book is. If you have anything to do with backups you need to read this book. It's like the holy grail of backup.

I am an Information Technology student at Georgia State University and I have found this to be an extremely valuable book. It has become my bible for disaster prevention and recovery. How rare to find a book this thorough and yet this easy to understand. Clearly, the author was a writer before he ever became a PC expert. Most technical books are written by technicians who don't know how to write.

The author devotes 350 pages to a subject glossed over even in the largest, heaviest book on Windows you can find. The absolute best, most useful computer book I have ever purchased, it tells you what to do and how to do it. Equally as important, it tells you what NOT to do.

This book is very easily read and understood even for the first time computer owner as well as all old-timers. The suggestions of the writer make perfect sense and the products recommended are all excellent. If you are concerned about any type of computer disaster, this book will put your fears to rest. This book should be a MUST READ for all computer owners from the home PC to the corperate Computer Administrators.
This is the BEST information I have ever read on computers!

Apparently, a "reader" from Fort Lauderdale, Florida is yet another bitter and out-of-work IT person. This book was excellent and is a crucial reference for the average home pc user like myself. Thirteen 5-star reviews are RIGHT-ON!!!

I've been an Oracle DBA for a couple of years. I bought this book to help me pass the backup and recovery OCP exam. I studied this book for two weeks and passed the exam with flying colors. Thank you Ms. Wong!

I just passed my first OCP test today,3 hours ago. Before reading this book, I tried the free self-test sofware from Oracle and made only 40%. Today I made 90% or 54 corrects out of 60 questions in the real exam. Without this book, I surely will fail, especially at the Recovery Manager sections (18 questions) which I am not familiar with. Besides, thanks to this book, I found many mistakes I made in the backup strategy for our databases and corrected them. Thanks, Debbie!. You wrote a great book!. It helped me more than the 2000-dollar course I attended.

Excellent preparation for the exam. Like the Performance Tuning, DBA, and Network Exam Crams, the material is well organized, thorough, and the practice exams are harder than the real thing.