Does EZ-Backup use file compression?
The EZ-Backup software has both client and server level compression options. At Cornell, we force compression ON at the server, so that the client (you) has no choice but to use compression. We do this to conserve network bandwidth and server storage utilization. If we wanted to, we could have configured the server so that the client could choose to compress data or not, at your choice. This choice would be specified in the “ADSM Preferences” file on your computer. Because we have forced compression ON, there is no need for the COMPRESS option in this file; it is overridden by server-level compression. By using server-level compression, the data that you back up or archive is first compressed by your workstation before being stored on the EZ-Backup server. Compression efficiency depends quite a bit on the type of data that is being compressed. Executables may be less compressable than documents. (Note that the ADSM Scheduler does report the compression percentage in the summary statist
