Okay ... I know this is not what you are asking for, but here goes anyway:
I have VPN connections to the machines that I must backup, and I can use "net use" to map a drive letter to these remote machines.
Now, my backups involve backing up millions of teensy weensy little files, some beeg ones [1GB], and I don't want to bring them all down all the time, I just want an in-sync directory structure on this side that matches that side, and then I put my "copy" on tape.
I use compression on the VPN connection which helped a lot for the 1GB size file wich is basically a database backup. But - it's generally better to compress the file on that side before trying to copy it down. Could not run the compress on that side cos of political BS.
I use a tool called robocopy, which is a Microsoft provided tool that is a souped up xcopy. Nice thing about it is that it can generate output of errors only/detailed report/whatever, and it can keep the directoried in sync.
I used scheduled tasks in windows xp to run batch files that run commands like:
net use i: \\denver62we\FDFiles
robocopy i:\ *.doc *.dat g:\Backups\Denver62we\ /MIR /Z >> g:\Backups\Denver62we.txt
net use i: /d
which maps the network drive, sync's the contents, unmaps it.
I cannot remember the switch to log errors only and to set the number of retries.
I've been using it for more than a year now and have zero complaints.
Simple is much much much better.
I have a program that watches the log files for > 0 bytes and then emails me the contents.
