I don't understand why you are storing your data as perl in another file. As an option, you could use a delimited file. Ponder this:

backup.hostname.com||on||ping||hostname.com||user@hostname.com||Failed
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You can read this with split This way, you don't have to monkey with eval. Also, you have a lot of redundancy in your records. I count the word hostname 3 times, plus you have two fields that could probably be represented with a "1" or a "0" (status and error).
thor