Right now, I'm evaluating and studying some open source available solution for backup and recovery.

I'm looking something that will be able to backup a heterogeneous operating system (Windows, Linux); database and applications like Oracle, MySQL, Lotus Domino; and clients like Windows 2000, XP, Vista - all must be automated, online and no user intervention, and if possible up to bare metal backup and recovery as well.

Any suggestions please? Thanks.

If you are handling Oracle-on-Linux specially for those who are planning to switch or for new implementations and deployments, one of the difficult part of planning is which Linux distro to use? Which server to use? Which storage device to use? Even which Oracle database version to use? Are they all compatible?

Five days ago, I upgraded Athena (our main desktop PC here) from 5.10 (Breezy Badger) to 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake); it was pretty easy, and even all my additional installations and hacks like chikka, skype, various multimedia capabilities, and many more; all works like a charm.