Updating Symantec Backup Exec 2012 to 2014 on Appliance 3600

[adeelarifbhatti]

Hi All,

 Is there someone who has updated the Symantec Backup Exec 2012 to 2014 on Appliance 3600 ? or if someone tried it ?

Could you share your experience ?

Thanks !

[pkh]

See this document http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO100113

[Paul_Gazo]

Sure, RTFM.  But the question was... has anyone succeeded or failed yet?

It's a valid question given that the document in question is (albeit slightly) incorrect.  In the PowerShell commands provided, they've used em dashes instead of en dashes, which won't work if you copy & paste them.

I'm going to be upgrading or destroying the first of my customer's appliances tomorrow so other users' experiences would have been educational and appreciated (as is your frequent forum assistance pkh).

[CraigV]

...Paul, your customer has to have maintenance and support in place with Symantec, and this forum isn't full of similar questions to yours. My suggestion would be to log a call with Symantec and see if they can assist you through this, as they would've had this tested and know all the ins-and-outs.

Once done, you'll know for future reference what to do.

Thanks!

[Paul_Gazo]

?

I don't have an issue.  I'm just pointing out that the original poster didn't ask for a how-to.  PKH (and you, actually) are very helpful individuals who go out of their way on a daily basis to steer people to resources they need.  All I was doing was:

1} pointing out that the OP wasn't looking for technical information... he was asking for results.

2} pointing out that I'm curious how folks are fairing on this brand new package as well.

Honestly, if I can catch on that the documentation is incorrect, I'm probably going to manage to get my installs done without a Symantec case involved.  It'd just be nice to know that there aren't any game-stopper unnoticed issues.

[Paul_Gazo]

Craig... you and pkh spend a lot of your personal time helping folks out on the forum.  I see that every day, and I offer you nothing but the greatest of respect for that.  Respect and thanks.

That said, I've never indicated I have any sort of a problem doing the install.  I know my customers need maintenance; I've already got their updated SLFs, I've got the media, I'm good to go.  I don't need - or want - a Symantec hand-hold.

The OP simply asked if anyone's actually got real-world experiences to relate regarding doing the install.  Not an unreasonable question.  Nobody likes to be the first to roll out an appliance package.

Me, I pointed out that there's a real, honest-to-goodness flaw in the documentation.  I'm savvy enough to have caught it.  What else might Symantec have missed?  The OP (and I) are curious what the success rate looks like so far for real-world users.  For all we know there's a show-stopper flaw in the upgrade package that bricks appliances if you don't have static IPs assigned to all of its NICs.  Or that bricks them if you do.  Who knows?  Not us, because the package is so new there's no feedback yet.

So.  How have your installs gone?  How about pkh's?

[jurgen_barbieur]

I will do the upgrade today, will share my experience later on

[jurgen_barbieur]

at the moment a very bad experience.

we went stuck on the prerequisites (apply the hotfix) so I opened a case at Symantec. 

Until now they were not able to fix the issue (tried to repair, uninstall-install, unregister-register) with liveupdate but without success. Actually the even messed up the WEBUI.

To be continued

[Paul_Gazo]

I'm in a support case as well.  I met all the prerequisites fine.  The appliance upgrade process failed during the BE upgrade, trying to update the MSSQL Express instance and then removed it.  So now presumably we need to find a way to get the original MSSQL instance reinstalled (the executables are literally gone), then move forward.
 

[Paul_Gazo]

Well, it looks like the migration from SQL Express 2005 to SQL Express 2008 R2 went awry.  The 2005 executables are gone and the installer reports there are no SQL instances.  AppWiz says 2008 R2 is installed, but I haven't messed with it enough to see if it (tried to) create an instance.  Not sure what they're going to want to do.

[adeelarifbhatti]

I am wondering that the update for the backup appliance installed on my appliance is "Backup Exec Appliance 3.0.419.0 Hotfix 186816"

However the document says that the update should be TECH215884  but when I check for the live update from the Symantec backup Exec 2012 it says that no HF is available and applaince is up-to-date.

[jurgen_barbieur]

that's the same issue I had yesterday.

because of this issue I opened a case at symantec, but still stuck in the support, with the extra problem that the engineer messed up my webui

I'm trying now to get the case escalated, but it seems very difficult to get the right engineer on the phone

[mr_mdoyle]

I have had a call logged since September 10th with the same issues

Still waiting to get the hotfix associated with TECH215884 supplied for manual install however a week later I am still waiting.

It would appear this issue is bigger than Symantec are willing to admit - if they had told me a week ago that there was issues with supplying this hotfix I would have been happy to accept this and hold off.

[BackupBjoern]

The SQL problem you have and the solutin to it is outlined in this TN

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH216807

[adeelarifbhatti]

Hi all,

 Is the issue related to  "Hotfix TECH215884" still alive ? or did we get some remedy for it ?

Thanks

[BackupBjoern]

The issue with HF215884 was limited and just temporary LiveUpdate problem and how to correct this is outlined in TECH224496.

A general issue usually casued by using LiveUpdate used outisde of the appliance WebUI is detailed in TECH218292

For true offline environments the HF can be installed locally. Contact support to obtain this HF.

For all other environments where LiveUpdate should work and does not please accept when calling support that the configuration will checked and further attempts to get the update from LiveUpdate will be made as this is the preferred method of updating. You also may be carrying over a general LU problem over to R3 when upgraded so getting this taken care of first would be of benefit.

[jurgen_barbieur]

I got stuck with the HF215884. I followed the technote 218292. But unfortunately, nothing happened. The hotfix was not found and so neither applied. I had to have it installed locally by an engineer of Symantec.

So the issues with this hotfix are not solved by the technote provided, keep on searching for a real solution

[VJware]

Try this KB for installing HF 215884 - http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH224496

[jurgen_barbieur]

also tried that one, without any success.

but now the update is installed, with the help of an US-engineer

[jurgen_barbieur]

the HF is needed because it will configure the PS commands needed for the upgrade.

once this is done, the upgrade can be launched, taking some remaks into account:

- don't use windows 8, 8.1, 2012, ... as OS for the remote Powershell. Their version of PS is to recent and will cause some errors.

here are some remarks launching the PS commands towards the appliance:

Enter-PSsession -computername <It must be the FQDN> (ip-address will cause some errors later on) -credentials <loacl appliance administrator> (using another account will cause some errors later on) -configurationname appliance

the location of the files can also cause some issues. In my case the upgrade failed if the files weren located on a networkshare. I had to have the installationfiles locally on the appliance or on a USB stick.

Upgrading the appliance take some time (about 2 -4 hours) and at the end when you think nothing is happening, leave everything like it is, and start a continous ping to the appliance. You will see that the appliance reboot three times in a row. After the third reboot, you can consider a succesfull upgrade