Forum Discussion

Brian_Chinn's avatar
12 years ago

multiple media servers but want one shared SQL database instance

I'm looking for a straightforward path to a solution.
I'm almost completely positive that I can achieve this with BackupExec 2010, but trying to pick my way through 2,000 pages of administrator's guide seems a bit daunting.  I'm hoping that someone's done something like this before.

I have an environment with multiple Windows 20xx servers (with large, local, RAID-5 arrays) functioning as Hyper-V VM farms, an HP MSL2024 24-slot LTO-4 fiber channel tape library, a brocade 4GB fiber switch and BackupExec 2010 R3.  Each Windows server is connected to the fiber switch (via a QLogic QLA/QLE-2460) for the purpose of backup throughput (1Gbit ethernet is sufficient to do management tasks on the Windows servers).  I've installed BackupExec on one server, connected it to a SQLServer instance, installed the correct tape drive and library drivers.  As a single stand-alone BackupExec Media Server, it works fine.  When I tried to install BackupExec on another server, I tried pointing it to the same BE database instance but was told that the instance was alraedy in use and the database was in use.  I then installed San Storage Option (SSO) on the first BE server, setting it as the primary.  Then I tried installing BE on the second server, including SSO (and setting that server as Secondary), but it still asked for a database instance, and would not let me select the one used by the first BE.

Further reading pointed me towards CASO, so I installed CASO on the first server, then tried to do an install push of BE to another server, when i had to choose a database, i picked the database that was being used by the managing server, and the install failed becaues that database instance was already in use.

so between SSO and CASO, i'm not really sure how to accomplish the goal of having everything funnel into one BE database.  I have 6 Windows servers, i plan to install a BE media server on each one and i don't want to have to stand up 6 SQLServer instaces just to support this.

Thanks for any advice/help.

  • Hi there

     

    In a CASO/ESO/SSO environment even though a lot of the handling for all MBE/MMS jobs is done by the database on the CASO itself, the individual MBE/MMS servers still need their own databases even though they are not used as much.

     

    Unfortunately BE requires that the database itself is called BEDB on each media server, whilst you can use different instance names. What this means is that you can't put all the Backup Exec databasess into one instance, although you can run multiple separate SQL instances on one Windows server and point each media server at a specific instance during the install. 

     

    EDIT: I believe we may have been asked for enhancements regarding this before, however it may be worth you subnitting an "Idea" via the Create Content --> Ideas section of the forums. We treat Ideas as enhancement requests and ideas also have a voting system for us to judge the requirement

    EDIT2: This comment applies to all versions of BE, i.e.BEDB being a required name for the database has not changed as we changed the versions

  • Hi there

     

    In a CASO/ESO/SSO environment even though a lot of the handling for all MBE/MMS jobs is done by the database on the CASO itself, the individual MBE/MMS servers still need their own databases even though they are not used as much.

     

    Unfortunately BE requires that the database itself is called BEDB on each media server, whilst you can use different instance names. What this means is that you can't put all the Backup Exec databasess into one instance, although you can run multiple separate SQL instances on one Windows server and point each media server at a specific instance during the install. 

     

    EDIT: I believe we may have been asked for enhancements regarding this before, however it may be worth you subnitting an "Idea" via the Create Content --> Ideas section of the forums. We treat Ideas as enhancement requests and ideas also have a voting system for us to judge the requirement

    EDIT2: This comment applies to all versions of BE, i.e.BEDB being a required name for the database has not changed as we changed the versions

  • ...just to expand a bit on Colin's detailed answer above...other competing vendors like CA with ARCserve and Veeam have a distributed model, much like the CASO option in Backup Exec.

    Neither of them for instance have a shared database either, so this is not a Symantec-only configuration.

    Thanks!