[dba-Tech] Linux and BSD

Linux has had three main missing products that are requirements for a good server network.

BSD has had FreeNAS (http://www.freenas.org), the best inexpensive data backup system, PFSence (http://www.freenas.org), the best enterprise GUI firewall and of course ZFS, the best network files system (http://open-zfs.org/wiki/Main_Page). 

At least on two products those limitations have changed. There a well tested replacement for FreeNAS called OpenMediaVault (http://www.openmediavault.org) The package comes as a complete OS and can install on virtually any device from a USB thumb-drive, any old beater computer or be installed on some huge box with many Raids and drives. There are plugins that allow backingup of all types of data across many protocols. (http://omv-extras.org/simple/index.php?id=plugins-stable) and there are more plugins on the various forums for just about every need. Check out the following screen shots for a sample of features: (http://www.openmediavault.org/screenshots.html)

How do you install the OMV pre-release OS on a Debian core?
(https://flexion.org/posts/2014-06-openmediavault-on-debian.html)

If you decide you want to upgrade the ZFS file system with it self-healing capabilities, snap-shot features and its ability to connect hundreds of drives and computers together check out the following: 
(https://clusterhq.com/blog/state-zfs-on-linux)

There still is no Linux firewall as easy to manage as PFSence but I would suspect there will soon be emerging application.

Jim