Colophon

Colophon

Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects.

The animal on the cover of Backup & Recovery is an Indian gavial (sometimes spelled gharial), a resident of deep, fast-moving rivers in India and neighboring countries. Growing six to seven meters long, the gavial is one of the largest members of the crocodilian family. It is most notable for its extremely long, narrow snout.

This snout, which is lined with razor-sharp teeth, is perfectly suited for catching and eating fish, the gavial's principal food. The narrow shape results in little water resistance, making rapid side-to-side snatches easy. The many sharp teeth are effective for holding onto struggling, slippery fish. The gavial's short, poorly muscled legs makes moving on land very awkward, and thus it only emerges from the water for nesting and basking in the sun. Like other crocodiles, the gavial has often been accused of being a man-eater. Findings of human remains and jewelry in gavial stomach ha s has perpetuated this belief, but since Hindi burial rituals in the gavial's habitat involve setting the cremated body afloat in the river, this is probably where these items come from. However, this animal is as poorly suited for eating humans as it is well-suited for eating fish.

Gavials are highly endangered, and came close to extinction in the 1970s. Thanks to conservation efforts there has been some recovery of the gavial population. They have been protected since the 1970s, but males are still sometimes hunted for their snouts, which are said to have aphrodisiac properties. Gavials can also become caught in fishing nets, resulting in their death.

In summary, in the words of this book's author: "Let's see . . . huge, intimidating, ugly creature that's not actually harmful to humans . . . That sounds like backups to me!"

The cover image is a 19th-century engraving from the Dover Pictorial Archive. The cover font is Adobe ITC Garamond. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont's TheSans Mono Condensed.

About the Author

W. Curtis Preston has been specializing in data protection since 1993, when he was responsible for backups at a $35 billion credit card company with 24/7 availability requirements. It was there that Curtis selected and used his first commercial backup and recovery product. He left that company to go into consulting "to get out of backups and become a real system administrator." His first assignment was at the headquarters of another very large corporation that, as it turned out, had no decent backup system. So much for getting out of backups. An Oracle backup script he had written came in so handy there that he decided to publish it in his first article. The hundred or so emails he received from around the world were enough to give Curtis the publishing bug. He suddenly realized that there was quite a demand for the knowledge that he had acquired over the years. He immediately began working on Unix Backup & Recovery, his first book. This was followed by more articles, another book (Using SANs and NAS), and many speaking opportunities around the world. Curtis has advised some of the largest companies in the world on their data protection systems, including three of the Fortune 10.

Curtis is now the vice president of data protection for GlassHouse Technologies, the largest independent provider of storage-related professional services, including complete operational management of your backup system. He is now considered by many people to be the industry's foremost expert on backup and data protection.