Forum Discussion

undejj's avatar
undejj
Level 3
16 years ago

BESR 8.5.5 and BEWS 11d Coexisting on Network - Any Advantage?

I apologize in advance because I am sure that this question has been asked and answered before but I can't locate a good resource - if someone could direct me to the answer I would very much appreciate. I have both BESR 8.5.5 and BEWS 11d in our environment, on different servers. I had been using BEWS exclusively until a month ago when we purchased BESR. Now that I have had some time to evaluate the features of BESR, I have to question whether BEWS provides us with any additional benefit. If the only benefit of BEWS is backup to tape and assuming that I still think tape media is a valuable form of storage, then I suppose I could use BEWS to backup my BESR image files. Are there any arguments supporting continued use of both products? It seems that I could achieve all of my objectives by using only BESR - full system backups, file backups, incremental backups and restores, backup to disk, offsite storage, disaster recovery, disaster recovery to different hardware ..
11.x and Earlier
Backup and Recovery
BESR 8.x
Best Practice
Features
System Recovery
  • binayak's avatar
    binayak
    16 years ago
    If you have servers running MS Exchange, Oracle, SQL etc., you can take brick-level backup using BEWS; BESR can't do this. BESR is only meant for taking image backup and file backup of servers, you won't get that much of flexibility compared to BEWS.

    Using BEWS along with Desktop Laption Option you can take backup of client machines (Linux, Win XP etc.) from a centralized management server, BESR can't do this.

    Backup Exec System Recovery Disk is helpful for recovering image backup in a crashed server or bare metal server in a very short span of time, BEWS can't do this.

    Basically for disaster recovery or bare metal recovery, BESR is the best and for Centralized file/folder level backup BEWS is the best.
  • undejj's avatar
    undejj
    Level 3
    16 years ago
    I understand the differences in the two products. I guess, for me, it just really comes down to the fact that although I use BEWS for brick-level backups of Exchange and SQL, I have never had to use them for restores. Rarely, I need to restore a lost or deleted file. So my greatest concern, over time, has become system recovery because attempting to do it with BEWS is a time-consuming, hair-raising proposition compared to BESR. Now I just need to devise an efficient way to store all of the disk based backup files created by both programs.
  • binayak's avatar
    binayak
    Level 4
    16 years ago
    If you have servers running MS Exchange, Oracle, SQL etc., you can take brick-level backup using BEWS; BESR can't do this. BESR is only meant for taking image backup and file backup of servers, you won't get that much of flexibility compared to BEWS.

    Using BEWS along with Desktop Laption Option you can take backup of client machines (Linux, Win XP etc.) from a centralized management server, BESR can't do this.

    Backup Exec System Recovery Disk is helpful for recovering image backup in a crashed server or bare metal server in a very short span of time, BEWS can't do this.

    Basically for disaster recovery or bare metal recovery, BESR is the best and for Centralized file/folder level backup BEWS is the best.
  • Gilly-Bhoy's avatar
    Gilly-Bhoy
    Level 6
    16 years ago

    The agents in BEWS are designed to properly protect and restore SQL, Exchange, Oracle etc.

    Our clients use BEWS for days to day file protection and file recovery.

    They use BESR for day to day server protection and server recovery.

    But that's my opinion.

    I'm sure others will come back with their opinions.

    Best of luck.

    Gilly

  • undejj's avatar
    undejj
    Level 3
    16 years ago
    What can't I do with BESR that I can with BEWS? Even better, if anyone can provide me with an example of how they are using both products in their environment, that would be great.
  • Gilly-Bhoy's avatar
    Gilly-Bhoy
    Level 6
    16 years ago
    In my opinion they are two different products.
    BESR is a DR product.
    BEWS is a backup product.

    Although you can backup files with BESR it wouldn't have a lot of flexibility that BEWS would have.
    The agents in BEWS are excellent.
    BESR is really only for DR in my eyes.

    I would always recommend backing up your images to tape to have off site copies.

    I'm sure others will come on here and argue the pros and cons but that's my 2 cents.

    Good Luck,
    Gilly