Amazon S3 and Windows 2003 - Is is possible with Cygwin

[James Kramer]

Thanks a lot for the advice

Jay

On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 11:52 AM, Tom Metro <blu at vl.com> wrote:
> James Kramer wrote:
>  > I was trying to think of an easy way to back up my file systems at
>  > work that run off a Win 2003 server.  I would like to use the Amazon
>  > S3 online storage.
>  > ...
>
> > Can I use Cygwin to run the Linux version of the Amazon S3 script and
>  > back up my windows directories.
>
>  Perhaps, but before going that route I'd explore these options first:
>
>  Take a look at the S3 "Solutions Catalog"[1] and find an S3 client that
>  is designed to run on Windows. JungleDisk[2], for example, is a popular
>  choice that runs on multiple platforms, but isn't free.
>
>  If you can't find something suitable that works natively on Windows, I'd
>  next take a look at some of the solutions written in multi-platform
>  languages, such as Perl, Java, or Ruby. These will run on Windows
>  without the Cygwin compatibility environment. This blog post[3] lists a
>  bunch of them.
>
>  1.
>  http://solutions.amazonwebservices.com/connect/kbcategory.jspa?categoryID=66
>  2. http://jungledisk.com/
>  3. http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/007641.html
>
>
>
>  > It there any special parameters that I need to use to differentiate
>  > between Linux and Unix files--I know that Windows stores files
>  > slightly differently than *nix.
>
>  The line endings on text files are different, but any backup system that
>  properly preserves the content of files, regardless of where it is
>  stored, should transparently store Windows files. What characters are
>  legal in file names also differ, but generally UNIX is less restrictive
>  than Windows, so using a tool design for UNIX won't impose any problems.
>
>  There are some Windows-specific options for rsync, but if you're going
>  to be backing up to S3, you won't be using rsync. (For a bit about why,
>  see [4][5].) At best you'll be using a tool that approximates the
>  benefits of rsync. (It looks like their are some people using Amazon's
>  Elastic Compute Cloud to build true rsync services layered on top of S3,
>  but I don't know if any of these services are currently available or
>  cost effective.)
>
>  4. http://guillaume.filion.org/blog/archives/2007/02/rsync_algorithm_s3.php
>  5. http://www.google.com/search?q=s3+rsync
>
>
>  > For that matter, if I were to back up my windows partition...
>
>  Usually when someone speaks of backing up a partition, they're referring
>  to doing a low-level image of the partition, including partition tables
>  and the file system structure. None of the S3 tools are designed to do
>  this, that I'm aware of. They're all designed to work with individual
>  files. While you could using a partition imaging tool to create a file,
>  and then one of the tools above to transfer it to S3, it would be very
>  bandwidth inefficient unless the tool was specifically designed to split
>  up the source file into multiple files (chunks) on the S3 side.
>
>   -Tom
>
>  --
>  Tom Metro
>  Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
>  "Enterprise solutions through open source."
>  Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/
>

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