by Mitch Tulloch

Veritas Backup Exec 8.5

www.veritas.com 

My rating:

This review is reprinted from my new book Administering Exchange Server 2000 from McGraw-Hill

(26 Mar 01) See below for reader comments on my review

Description

Backup Exec is a popular backup and recovery tool for the Windows NT/2000 platforms, and includes backup agents for the full line of Microsoft BackOffice applications including Exchange 2000 and SQL 2000. Use this product to protect the data on your Exchange servers and to recover quickly after a disaster occurs.

Product Review

Installation of this product is straightforward, but some preparatory planning is helpful. You can install Backup Exec and Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft Exchange Server directly on an Exchange server you want to back up. Alternatively, you can install Backup Exec on a designated backup server (a server which has attached archival storage devices like tape drives) and the Backup Exec Agent for Exchange on the Exchange servers on your network, but to do this the service account you create for Backup Exec must be a member of the local administrators group on your Exchange servers and the Exchange administration tools must be installed on your designated backup server. You also have the options during Setup of installing Backup Exec Remote Agent on remote servers and workstations to allow remote backup and restore of Windows 2000 features on these machines. Be sure to reboot your machine after installing Backup Exec or any of its components.

Note that installing the Exchange agent on your Exchange servers is not so intuitive¾if you insert the Backup Exec CD into your Exchange server and try to select only the Exchange agent for installation, you are prompted to install the full product and not allowed to proceed. Instead you have to exit the installation program and use Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel to install the agent on the machine. Note also that the printed manual included with the product actually contains several manuals including the Options Manual explaining how to install the Exchange Agent and other agents. Each section has its own index as well, which was a bit confusing¾I flipped to the back of the book, looked up Microsoft Exchange, and then couldn’t find the references listed there until I finally realized the printed book was actually two books in one! This should be clearly stated on the cover of the book.

When you first run the VERITAS Backup Exec application several wizards walk you though the process of configuring your backup hardware, media overwrite protection, and automatic virus scanning. The Backup Exec Assistant window then appears (Figure A2-1), from which you can create, schedule, and monitor backup jobs, initiate restores, configure backup devices and media pools, and perform related tasks using these wizards.

Figure A2-1: The Backup Exec Assistant.

Creation of backup jobs is intuitive and easy using the Assistant. The manual included with the product fills in the gaps where things are not so intuitive. Alternatively, you can close the assistant and perform tasks manually using the Backup Exec administrative console (Figure A2-2). Note that this is not an MMC console, so this version (8.5) of Backup Exec is not 100% integrated into the Windows 2000 design environment (though it is fully functional in every way).

You can back up the entire information store or individual storage groups or data stores on an Exchange server or individual mailboxes, folders, or messages. If you want to do the latter you have to first create a mailbox for the Backup Exec service account by mailbox-enabling the account using Active Directory Users and Computers, and you need a MAPI email client like Outlook installed on the backup server as well. Backing up individual mailboxes, folders, or messages actually takes longer though and has a greater impact on system performance, so this is probably not something you would want to do often.

Figure A2-2: The Backup Exec administrative console.

Backup Exec gives you several options as far as backup methods for Exchange is concerned. You can choose:

• Full – database files and transaction logs are backed up, then logs that have all transactions committed are flushed.

• Copy – databases and transaction logs are backed up.

• Incremental – transaction logs only are backed up, then logs than have all transactions committed are flushed.

• Differential – transaction logs only are backed up.

When restoring Exchange data you can choose to restore the entire information store or specific storage groups, data stores, mailboxes, folders, or messages. If the restored messages already exist in the destination folder, duplicates are created.  Some care must be taken when restoring individual data stores within a storage group, as if you fail to select the recommended No Loss Restore option you can lose your transaction logs for the entire storage group. Otherwise, things are fairly intuitive when working with the product.

From the Vendor

Some enhancements with this version include:

• Full support for Information Stores (IS) and Directory Service (DS)
• Flexible job scheduling
• Utilization of Exchange Server Messaging APIs (MAPI) for backups and restores
• Integration with VERITAS Backup Exec Intelligent Disaster RecoveryTM Option
• Support of cluster failover in a Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) environment
• Support for storage area networks (SANs) with VERITAS SAN Shared Storage Option

Reader Comments

Here are some comments submitted by Lee Eilers, Sr. Network Engineer, IRM Group, National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The Backup Exec product still lacks the one component that keeps me using the more cumbersome Arcserve product and that is the continuing inability to edit existing recurring backup jobs natively. This is particularly disconcerting in an enterprise environment. The lack of such a basic feature, for me anyways, makes me see red every time Veritas is mentioned as a "worthy" and "well thought out" product. Bah hum bug.

Confirmed with Veritas tech support. The ability to edit existing jobs requires a utility that can be download from their site.

I hadn't considered that, Lee. Under what circumstances would you want to edit existing recurring backup jobs natively?

If I create a backup job on an enterprise Veritas Backup Exec server and that backup job consisted of, say, 8 different servers with differing directory selections and I wanted to add or remove a server, I will have to recreated the job according to Veritas tech support. In Arcserve, I can modify the existing job and change my backup selections.

I run backup Exec at a couple of my remote sites as a single server backup, but my enterprise is backed up by Arcserve. I like Backup Exec's ease of use, but that one inability irks me to no end and prevents Backup Exec's full implementation here.

It would seem that feature is as basic as walking. I brought it to their attention in v7.0 and their lack of attention to this detail is disconcerting.

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(26 Mar 01) Some comments from OutlookExchange reader John Edwards, IT Support dept of Runecraft Leeds:

Just read your review of this. I saw the reader comment on the bottom, saying that you can't edit existing recurring jobs. Not true (in 8.5 at least, I have no experience with other versions). I'm currently running a trial copy to decide whether to buy Backup Exec 8.5 or ArcServer 2000 (which I've used before).

To edit an existing job, go to the Job Monitor pane. Highlight the job in question. Choose edit job... from the menu. Ta da.