I am developing a backup app. Is this a reasonable feature-set?

[davegr]

I am developing a backup application for Apple Macs.

It wraps rsync and exposes its power with two desktop apps. One is a server-side configuration app where you can set up multiple accounts. You can designate things like:

• Exactly what directory should hold each account's backup store.
• A size limit.
• A limit to the number of backup (versions) to keep.

The other app is the client-side application where you can set up multiple jobs. You can specify things like:

• Exactly what to include and exclude.
• Exactly when to run the backups (every N days/hours/minutes or every X day at a specific time). So, for example, you can define one job which does hourly backups and another which does a full weekly backup on Sunday night at 23.00.
• It also includes various options such as a bandwidth limit and a priority setting so your computer doesn't slow down just because a backup is running.

It differs from Time Machine on the above mentioned aspects, and also:

• Thanks to rsync, it will comfortably backup over the internet (as well as the LAN of course)
• You can 'chain' things together, so an on-site backup server could also push its store up into an rsync server 'in the cloud' (for offsite replication at night - or something).
• In testing it runs at significantly higher performance than Time Machine in real-world situations (for instance, backing up VMWare Fusion or Parallels virtual disks takes seconds, not hours. Same for large Entourage databases).
• The backup store is not proprietary - you can share it via AFP, FTP, etc. There is no proprietary 'restore' function. The backups are 'just files and folders' so you can just copy them back however suits you best.

I wonder if this sort of application would be of interest to people, or if people feel there is no real need for this.

Thanks,

Dave.