[gentoo-server] [Somewhat OT] Backup Solution (Gentoo Based)

[Kirk Hoganson]

Not really a Gentoo specific problem, but one related to my Gentoo 
servers none the less.  Hopefully someone here can provide some insight 
that I lack, in finding a good overall solution to our backup needs.

We have about 50 Gentoo servers filling different roles, and we have 
been outgrowing our current backup solution (bash scripts on each host), 
for some time.

I recently got the budget for a central host with a couple TB of 
storage.  Now it falls to me to come up with a replacement for these 
disparate scripts that fills our specific needs.

What are those needs?  Well, I'm glad your curious.  They are actually 
pretty simple.
1. We have directories with data that change daily on many of these 
hosts.  These must be backed up incrementaly.
2. We need to create regular system "snapshots", or recovery CD's to 
backup the systems and their configurations in the event of failure.
3. There are systems whose data changes on a less frequent basis, and 
these need only be backed up weekly.
4. We also have several MySQL databases that also must be backed up 
daily in their entirity.  One of these DB's is about 20G, the rest are 
much smaller.
5. All of this data is compressed, encrypted, and sent to an outside 
vendor for offsite storage.  We don't need to archive much of our data. 
  Our needs are primarily data and system recovery.

We were considering AMANDA as a central solution, but it's lack of MySQL 
integration made it only a partial solution, with some addition 
hacking/scripting to make it viable for all of our data.

I would like to keep as much logic and control on the central system to 
ease maintenance.  I would also prefer to use standard tools wherever 
possible, to avoid unnecessary complication.

Does anyone have any thoughts about how some of this can be 
accomplished, using a software package (like AMANDA), or an in house 
model putting together common system tools (perl, ssh, tar, etc.)

I am really hoping to find something that we won't regret in a month, 
because it is a ridiculous hack, or a horribly flawed architecture.
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