| Hi Mitch,
We use BackupExec, mainly for the reason it has worked
as expected (most of the time) over the years we have been running all
Exchange versions.
We are satified with it. Our Exchange stores are less
than 5GB so far. We are using a Sony DAT tape drive, with an Adaptec SCSI,
if I remember correctly. But about 60% of our customers, large and small,
are using the BackupExec (with the Exchange addon, of course). I don't
think the backup programs are the real problem; its more ignorant
administrators, IMHO. :)
/Göran
What about the other 40% of your customers? What would
you say would be the next most used backup solution?
Mitch
Arcserve is number two. I would guess maybe 20-25%.
NTBackup is very uncommon in production environment, at
least what I have seen. But I will also say that I don't think it´s bad,
NTBackup is a good choice for smaller organizations, especially the W2K
version
/Göran
We use Veritas Backup Exec. It works and they have good
support. That is the reason why CA is very very very very low on my list.
/Martin
I have used both BackupExec and Arcserve - they are 90%
similar, both work on Exchange, both's BLB no good. But ( there is always
a but), BackupExec is faster, Arcserve's tech support is a little
headache. I would suggest BackupExec.
I also use DataKeeper to backup PCs' data to a Snap
server. Snap server is Network Attached Storage, actually just a thin
server with a bunch of big hard disks ( can be RAID ). My snap server is
from Quantum and this software comes with it free.
/Michael
Hi Mitch,
I am backing up Exchange 5.5 with Veritas Backup Exec
v8.5. I support approx. 1300 users and use two Dell 120T autoloaders
with 5 tapes (70GM) in each. We do a full backup once a week and
incrementals daily. I have a number of problems with it right now:
One is that we have a Bridgehead server (Exchange) on
our tier one domain (accounts domain) and my backups run on the tier two
domain (resource domain) I can't back up the Bridgehead because my
beservice acct is on the resource domain and has no rights on tier one.
I tried using a tieir one acct but it wouldn't work for either.
Another annoying thing is there is no such thing as an
incremental backup of the Exchange information store since if only one
user gets an email during the day the whole store has changed and will
backup each day. We are studying the possibility of backing up the
mail boxes instead of the information store. That would have the
added benefit of being able to restore an email folder without having to
send the whole database to headquarters.
I will be watching with great interest to see the
results of your survey.
Regards,
-Robby Robertson
Canada Customs & Revenue Agency
I use BackUp Exec 8.5 for small client sites, usually in the 10-200
user range. I back up everything, including mailboxes. Recovering
individual
messages is a great feature!
Chris
Any complaints or issues that have arisen while using it?
Mitch
The only issues are, making sure its installed properly. Making sure
the backup account has the proper permissions, etc.
The backup takes alot longer, but that's not an issue at this time for
my clients.
Again, the ability to restore messages is well worth the trade off in
backup time.
Chris
Hi Mitch;
Enjoyed your article on Veritas Backup Exec. We've been using the
product now for over a year. Here are some comments/opinions I hope you
find interesting:
Overall, we're very happy with the product. Our company is probably
getting to the size now where we'll need more than just Backup Exec, and
have to go with NetBackup or Enterprise backup. Anyways, we back up about
1TB with our full backups.
We have 3 dedicated backup servers - 1 for Exchange, 1 for our IS
servers, and 1 for general servers (file, print, etc...).
Cons:
-There is no way to export a job. Thus, if we implement a new backup
server (which we recently did), we have to manually recreate all the jobs
on the new server. Rather inconvenient.
-Though it is nice to be able to back up individual mailboxes, we've
been warned by Microsoft that this is not supported by them and can cause
disruption to the Information Store database. We have to back up the
entire store anyways, and just don't have the window to be able to sneak
in a backup of the mailboxes as well.
-If you are backing up multiple servers (say server1 - server9) and the
backup job has a problem with server 6, then servers 7 - 9 won't get
backed up. Sometimes Veritas BUExec will come up with the error
"device not available", which will stop the job. Yet, jobs
scheduled later are able to use the backup device fine. It is annoying
that this error tanks the whole job, instead of retrying it (a feature
available in NetBackup and/or Enterprise Backup, I believe).
-The licensing is a bit confusing as well. We got back to using 7.x
where you would buy a server license and back up all the machines you
like. With 8.x, as it is agent bases on remote servers, you have to
purchase an additional license for each server you want to back up. This
gets difficult to track, and was not immediately understood by us.
But, like I say, on the whole we are happy with the product.
Have a great day, Mitch. Hope my comments were of use.
Cheers,
-Adrian Phillips
Network Support Technician
PMC-Sierra, Inc.
Comment on product is that by default when setting up a job it seems to
default to "append and overwrite if media is not appendable"
This is bad it should by default terminate if no appendable media is
found.
This can be changed under tools/options , but as installed it defaults
to overwrite
We have had a case where a job that overwrites the media is run and
then an append job is run straight after. Backup exec considered the tape
(which contained the first job) was not appendable and overwrote it!
An operator can get caught out if they are not careful.
regards
Dean
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