Forum Discussion

Formula84's avatar
Formula84
Level 3
14 years ago

BESR 2010 GRO Exchange issues with monthly incrementals

Can anyone verify successfully using GRO in BESR 2010 on a Win7/2008 x64 machine, from a backup set with more restore points than available drive letters (22)?

Okay so here is my issue.  We have many clients we have been pushing out BESR 2010 to replace their current tape backup systems. 

Problem first noticed on a new 2008 r2 Server x64, running Exchange 2010 with BESR 2010 SP2.  This Server is set to run Monthly Incremental Jobs to a hot swap sata disk, then gets copied to 2 offsite sata disks.  All aspects of the backups have been running great along with mounting and restores with the exception of GRO. 

Here is what happens:

Environment: We have a secondary 2008 r2 Server x64, with Outlook 2007 installed.

1. We attempt to run GRO, from the choice for mounting we choose "use recovery points from another computer"

2. Browse and locate the s2vi file (index) for the backup drive on the primary server attempting be to recovered.

3. When selected the name of the Server is displayed in the list, highlight and chose next.

4. Password is requested, input and passes.

5. at this point if we watch the computer (windows explorer) while the gro attempts to load the recovery points it assigns a drive letter for each recovery point.

6. Eventually GRO displays a warning that not all restore points will be available and the program screen for the GRO that would show mailboxes and also the drop down to choose the restore point to get data from is blank.

7. If you go to explorer you can see all drive letters are now filled with mounted restore points and they are able to be browsed. 

8. GRO is locked and need to be closed, this leaves the drive letters mounted and requires manual dismount.

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Okay so I thought maybe this is this server so we will try on a Win 7 x64 machine same exact results.

Now if i have a backup set that has less than the available drive letters lets say 18, the GRO works fine from the Win 7/2008 box.

So then I further tested on the Win 7 machine from a Client using 2003 sbs Server, (different backup source, OS, and bit)  Same problem occurred with the drive letter limitation.

If I do this on a Win XP machine with more than available drive letters (30 incrementals) from the 2003 SBS clients the problem does not exist and GRO works great.

Problem is that if the exchange source on the backup was done on a 2007 or 2010 exchange then the version has to be 64 bit thus we need to use Win 7/2008 x64 to do the restore.  So now we are S.O.L with this product on newer server implementations.

I am hoping that someone has some incite other than don't do incrementals beyond the number of drive letters available because this is just absurd.

Was this product ever tested properly in x64 incremental implementations beyond 22 days at Symantec...?

Backing Up
Backup and Recovery
Compatibility
Configuring
MS Exchange
Recovering
Restore
System Recovery
Troubleshooting
Windows 7
  • David_F's avatar
    David_F
    14 years ago
    Symantec Corporation has acknowledged that the above-mentioned issue is present in the current version of the GRO product. Symantec Corporation is committed to product quality and satisfied customers.
     
    This issue is currently under investigation by Symantec Corporation. Pending the outcome of the investigation, this issue may be resolved by way of a patch or hotfix in current or future revisions of the software. However, this particular issue is not currently scheduled for any release.  If you feel this issue has a direct business impact for you and your continued use of the product, please contact your Symantec Sales representative or the Symantec Sales group to discuss these concerns.  For information on how to contact Symantec Sales, please see  https://customercare.symantec.com/app/
     
    Customers experiencing this issue are encouraged to contact Symantec Technical Support.
     
  • criley's avatar
    criley
    Moderator
    14 years ago

    6. Eventually GRO displays a warning that not all restore points will be available and the program screen for the GRO that would show mailboxes and also the drop down to choose the restore point to get data from is blank.

    Can you provide a screenshot of this warning?

    Let me do some digging to see what I can find out about this issue.

  • Formula84's avatar
    Formula84
    Level 3
    14 years ago

    A TSE from Symantec support has the screen shots actually a video.  We called and they worked with us last week, after seeing the problem happen his only answer was don't create incrementals beyond the number of available drive letters.  He also said "would you buy this product?" the nerve of some people we obviously already bought it and its his job to support it. 

    Anyway I find it hard to believe this is the only answer.  My thought was this may work in a win xp x64 or 2003 x64 server as on our 32 bit servers xp 32bit does not have this drive letter limitation.  Makes me think that the source of the behavior is how Symantec mount driver is interfacing with windows 7/2008, as Win xp/2003 are using completely different methods for disk management/mounting.

    Only problem is we don't have a licensed x64 xp/2003 to test with, and frankly it would be nice to know why this occurs with win7/2008 as this is going to be all of our future installs.

    Also another problem with his answer "don't do monthly", is that even if you do weekly and you have 4 sets, GRO will still fail as the index will attempt to call/mount all sets during gro option.   So at this point the only option is to manually move out other sets to a separate folder which can't be how this program is supposed to function. This is speculation as I have not done 4 weekly's to test.  But if you move out newer incrementals to get the number down below the number of available drive letters (22) it works fine (monthly), but obviously this does not work as we lose some days at the end of the month for GRO ability.

  • David_F's avatar
    David_F
    Level 6
    14 years ago
    Symantec Corporation has acknowledged that the above-mentioned issue is present in the current version of the GRO product. Symantec Corporation is committed to product quality and satisfied customers.
     
    This issue is currently under investigation by Symantec Corporation. Pending the outcome of the investigation, this issue may be resolved by way of a patch or hotfix in current or future revisions of the software. However, this particular issue is not currently scheduled for any release.  If you feel this issue has a direct business impact for you and your continued use of the product, please contact your Symantec Sales representative or the Symantec Sales group to discuss these concerns.  For information on how to contact Symantec Sales, please see  https://customercare.symantec.com/app/
     
    Customers experiencing this issue are encouraged to contact Symantec Technical Support.
     
  • Symanticus's avatar
    Symanticus
    Level 6
    14 years ago

    Yes please, I also would like to know the outcome because i also using Exchange Server 2007 SP1 on CCR environment on Windows Server 2008 plus I got so many drive letters as well (up to Z).