Amanda is a free backup system designed to archive many computers on a network to a large-capacity tape drive. Amanda has one central holding disk to which all dumps are made across the network. Data compression is done on the client end to reduce network bandwidth. Dump files are then put onto the high-capacity tape when it becomes available. Amanda does it's own dump level scheduling so that it can balance filesystem dumps and store more data in a multi day tape cycle than could be stored by running the same dump levels for every machine each night.

Networker from Legato is a commercial package available for WinNT, Novell NetWare/IntranetWare, SCO, AIX, HP-UX and Solaris. Storage devices can be placed throughout the network as NetWorker storage nodes, and can be managed as if they are locally attached. All savesets can be staged from any device controlled by a NetWorker server to any other device controlled by a NetWorker server. For short backup windows, NetWorker will recognize files as supported devices, enabling administrators to choose to do backup and recover from hard disk, instead of tape drives. As hard disks get filled, savesets can be staged to a less expensive form of media.

Alexandria, from Spectra Logic, can supply a backup strategy for UNIX hosts and databases such as Oracle, Informix, Sybase, SAP and CATIA. Oracle and Informix backups also have an HTML-based GUI interface. Alexandria provides enterprise-wide management of media, devices and data as well as allowing file catalog information to be centralized or distributed.

ARCserve, from Cheyenne Software, is a commercial backup package that runs on HP-UX, Sun Solaris (SPARC & x86), Sun OS, SCO, and IBM AIX. ARCserve has a Motif-based GUI, parallel streaming and advanced device management, and an optional Autochanger module that supports bar codes. It supports Cheyenne Backup Agents for Informix, Oracle, DataTools/Sybase, and Lotus Notes. ARCserve clients are also provided for NetWare, Windows NT, Windows 95 and 3.x, IBM OS/2, and Macintosh PCs.

BACKUP and Plan-B, from Orbit Software, is a backup package available for HP-UX, MPE, and PCs on an HP network. BACKUP supports hot file backups, with special support for Oracle databases, parallel backups to multiple tape drives, self tuning data compression to insure optimum throughput, and proprietary and DES encryption. BACKUP can archive any UNIX data type including files, raw partitions and FIFO streams.

BRU, from Enhanced Software Technologies, Inc, is designed primarily as a UNIX power-user's tool for performing system backup and recovery but now has a new X GUI as well. BRU's syntax is very similar to that of UNIX tar but with extended capabilities such as labeling, on-tape file directories, and compression. BRU backs up remote data via either a "Server Pull" mechanism, where the server mounts the clients under NFS, or "Client Push" where the clients push their data up to the server using the RPC/RMT interface. BRU will automatically detect byte-swapped environments and make changes transparently to ensure that the data restores correctly.

BudTool from PDC, allows specification of retention time for each type of backup, and when all backup images on a tape have expired, the tape is automatically returned to a logical free pool. BudTool also keeps track of how old a tape is and how many times the media has been reused, allowing for tape retirement before errors caused by media corruption. The backup server has an option for starting backup and retrieval operations on clients known as 'proxy' backups, and can back up machines that do not support 'rsh'.

HIBACK from HiComp America, Inc., is a commercial product that provides a number of flexible features which allow unique configurations to be made where necessary, such as software compression, compatibility with hardware compression, and fileset or raw disk storage. HIBACK uses relatively few operating system specific call, and can thus be ported very quickly to support new operating systems and devices. A HIBACK backup of multiple files creates one single 'savefile'. This contains all the stored files and is headed by a label containing important information for management purposes about the contents and the creation process. Savefiles created by HIBACK can be appended directly on the backup medium to existing savefiles created by any operating system version of HIBACK.

HP OpenView OmniBack II, from Hewlett Packard, offers a tight integration with HP OpenView OperationsCenter and HP OpenView IT/Operations, which provides central administration, monitoring and problem management of multiple backup environments connected via LAN or WAN. OmniBack II supports clients on HP-UX, SUN Solaris, IBM AIX, SGI IRIX, SNI/SINIX, DEC Digital Unix, DEC Ultrix, Novell NetWare, Windows NT and Windows 95 machines. The GUI is based on OSF/Motif for UNIX and Win95-style 95 and NT. Business data from SAP R/3, Oracle, Sybase and Informix can be protected while still the users allowing access to the applications.

QuickRestore Backup and Recovery, from Workstation Solutions, Inc., is a commercial package for Unix and NT machines. One can backup and restore multiple systems simultaneously to a variety of tape devices, graphically view indices, file, and directory locations and restores. Tape format allows for reading and restores using standard UNIX tar. QuickRestore has multi-platform support through native-mode ports and does not rely on NFS.

ADSM is a commercial backup solution package sold by IBM which runs the backup server on WinNT, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, OS/2, AS/400, MVS, VM, and VSE/ESA. Various operating systems of various architectures can be configured as clients. ADSM is an automated high-volume storage facility that controls systems dumps and keeps tracking records of all tapes in it's own internal database. Backups are done over the network and the clients can be configured to do compression so that network bandwidth is minimized during a data migration.