What are all the advantages and disadvantages in installing NBU with unix and windows environment

I have Solaris SPARC, RHEL 4+5 and Windows media servers.

The solaris servers are the most reliable. The linux servers are reliable but i have a few that have to have their tape drives readded every so often (too rare to really troubleshoot).  The windows server are required because of VCB for VMware but my main gripe with them is the TCP stack.  Network backups on windows are just slower than Unix.  I am curious though how this new 2008 server i just deployed for a new VMware environment will stack up against the unix boxes.

Just my 2c.

May be that says it all.... no one is even giving a nod to windows.

And I also agree that scripting in unix is so much easier then windows/dos.

Unix gives you the performance and the ability to script a lot of the day to day tasks.

I'm a Unix guru and I would warn you that if you are the least bit squimish about Unix, you better stay away from Solaris.  I would only recommend a Linux implementation if you're a newbie.  I've run NBU on all of the major platforms and here are some pros/cons IMHO:

Solaris
CON - Solaris is the toughest to manage and not for the faint of heart.
CON - sgscan and build sg is just a pain and you have to do it everytime you add any devices
PRO - SUN hardware is quite affordable and scales very well.
PRO - The benchmarks on performance are pretty good, I would say the best of the 3 OS's mentioned here.

Linux
CON - There's a lot of info on the WWW, beware of misinformation about config etc ... know the specifics to the release you use.
CON - You can stuff with a GUI ... boo! :)
PRO - Super easy to figure devices, Just make sure you're on a 2.6 kernel ... stay away from 2.4
PRO - Cheap to support, hardware can be cheap too, just make sure to do your research about compatibility

AIX
CON - Expensive as all heck
CON - Stupid /dev/ovpass stuff!
PRO - Very simple to add devices
PRO - smitty is actually a nice menu driven config tool which will show you the commands you run.

Additionally, just to reiterate what others have said, Unix is the way to go when it comes to scripting.  In that vain though, I would go with a good scripting language like Python.  This way if you need to port to another OS (i.e. Windows bleh) it's very easy.  But if you must use a shell script, which is quite easy but doesn't have all the goodness/functionality as Python does, use bash as your interpreter.

BTW - Start here http://www.symantec.com/business/support/overview.jsp?pid=15143 and check out all the compatability information (OS, Hardware, etc) if you haven't already.

Good luck!

CONS for Solaris, but don't know whether I should as you quote one of my most favorite lines from a film (unfortunately I can no longer do the voice!)

Find Solaris a doddle to manage (don't need to do anything), sg build stuff can be a pain but once it's done ....

But then again, it is what you know at the end of the day & the learning curve can be steep if you don't!

Again, no mention of Windows!

Again ... just an opinion ... wait until you manage multiple VTL's robotic control and DirectCopy (NDMP) to dupe ... then you will feel the pain of sgscan (oh and never have the GUI restart the media managers services unless you need to take a 30minute+ coffee break).  It took me the hard way to find out that LTID has a master server device limitation of 128 tape drives, Yikes (BTW- I hear that is resolved in NBU7).

I will mention one thing about my experience with Windows, which is limited to media server implementations.  With Windows 2000, you have to reboot to get tape drives added, Windows 2003, no reboot required. Otherwise, I know not what Windows can do for me. :)

Always do your research before implementing (hopefully you have that luxury) ... it will be a life saver.

Ouch!