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Ability to bundle multiple servers in a single job

GregOfBE
Level 4
Employee

Users including iammejutty; Steve Kratz; Mark McFarlane; PCTeamAdmin, among others requested the ability to bundle multiple servers in a single job.  We are happy to announce that In the next release of Backup Exec, the ability to bundle multiple servers returns.
 

112 REPLIES 112

BobsBarlo
Level 3

Hi!

I am pleased to see that there is progress on this but we do need a date for "next release" as we need to plan if we need to replace Backup Exec with another application or wait. What is the expected ETA for this next release?

Regards

Kam-Hong_BE_RPM
Level 2
Employee

 

BobsBarlo, as a public company we are restricted from making specific date commitments. 

But if you will like to participate in the beta program, please see the post at https://www secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/new-beta-program-backup-exec-2012-r2. Or if you'd like to participate in individual usability studies, please send an email to beusability@symantec.com.

Slappy
Level 3

Why wait for the next release to implement something that everybody has relied on for years.  Bring it back NOW.

I can only assume that you are pushing this off to the next release so the company can get more yearly maintenance $$ from all of us.

 

Ken_Putnam
Level 6

I can only assume that you are pushing this off to the next release so the company can get more yearly maintenance $$ from all of us.

 

or  because they have to rewrite a major portion of the base code??

So it will NOT be HotFix, but part of the "next release" (dot version)

 

At least they have seen how many folks are outraged and are willing to admit they made a mistake with their focus groups and beta testers!

Robert_Blanchet
Level 3

Symantec has been talking about a fix for this mess for the past 2 months. Where is it?

So far BE 2012 is the worst piece of software I have every had the displeasure of using. What I would like to know is what software engineer thought it would be a good idea to totally trash the old backup model that has worked for the past decade or more? Splitting the jobs into individual servers makes absolutely no sense if you are backing up to tape. I have 11 servers to backup. So now, with this brilliant new paradigm, my tape gets to be moved into and out of the drive 11 times per day by the robotic library. I'm sure that's good for the longevity of the device and the tapes.

Here's another major problem. How to I string all my backups together on my tapes unless I erase them first? You can't. If you don't erase the tapes first, it will append the jobs until it hits the end of the tape, then it starts overwriting. You have no control of what gets overwritten. You can't set the jobs to overwrite the tape either because each successive job will simply overwrite the one you just completed. In the old model I simple set the job to overwrite every day and it wasn't a problem because all the servers were contained in that one job. It's supposed to span multiple tapes too but I haven't been able to make that work either. It used to work in 2010 but 2012 seems to be fixated on putting everything on the first tape in my partition. It's probably some minor setting I've missed that is buried 15 layers deep in the new interface.

Oh yeah. The performance of this new model sucks too. It takes at least 3 hours longer to back up all my servers than it did in 2010.

Here is some free advice. Stop trying to change things. Backup Exec is the premier backup product because IT people like me know how to use it and like the way it works. The only thing you need to do to improve it is make it faster and more reliable. We don't need any new paradigms we need a piece of software that gets the job done without causing undue irritation. You have failed to provide that with BE 2012. Fix it please and fix it fast because the frustration this is causing me is making think about a real paradigm shift in my backup model. I might just switch to VEEAM and give up on BE altogether.

the_Hawk
Not applicable

They (Symantec) lost my AV subscription business when they made Endpoint in 2008, I went with something else.  They're about to lose me with the last piece of Symantec owned software on BE 2012.  This thing is utterly inspid at how its structured.  Each server is its own job?  Instead of having a full backup job on a friday and ONE job log to look at, I have to sift thru 16 different 'jobs'.  Sorry Symantec, this is much more cumbersome to navigate around in.  I'm gonna uninstall and reload BE 2010 on my servers (physical and Virtual) and re-push out the old agents.  Since I'm under maintenance for 2 more years, I'm sure to get the next crappy product they create for Backups which I hope is eons better than this. 

I am highly dissapointed, and I've been using Backup Exec since the late 90's through my IT career.  Don't make it more cumbersome and convoluted, which your focus groups comprised of 18-21yr olds think is the 'new cool' way to do things.  Listen to the veteran IT Directors who have much more real world experience than some 22yr old, new to IT beause they're the hipster who can configure the CEO's iPhone, does. 

Elizabeth_Teffn
Level 4
Employee

Hello!

Durring the week of August 20th, I am looking for user feedback regarding multi-server backup jobs in an upcoming release of Backup Exec.

If you are interested, please check out the schedule of sessions I have available.

These sessions take one hour of your time and you can participate from the comfort of your home or office. You will be logging into a WebEx session using our test machines to view the new multi-server features.

If you have any questions, please feel free to DM me.

Regards,

Elizabeth Teffner

Maxgeo
Level 4

PLease include me in any new hotfixes/updates that address this issue.

Like Robert above (agree on all counts) I am DUMBFOUNDED why a winning piece of software was re-written like it has been in 2012. What were you thinking? Maybe it would suit a first time home user, but I have been a sys admin for 15 years and know my back-up software, butw hat about us that have 50-100+ servers??  BE 2010 made sense and was intuitive. It worked, I could administer all servers in one hit. BE 2012? now ways.

I have been flat out trying to get 2012 working form scratch for the last 3 months and still spend half my day nutting out the issues and with tech support. Our backups to tape never work, need twice as many tapes and take twice as long. My BE 2012 server list only shows red crosses for pretty much every server and its a depressing sight every morning when you check your backups and all you see is red. ven if 99% gets backed up, still red. Bah.

The 'pretty' pie graphs and icons meant to make things look nice, just show red crosses, error alerts, and pie graph is 90% red.

dwade11
Not applicable

I am more than a little upset with the new 2012 version.

I have 8 severs with 14 different jobs and an incremental, scheduled out for the

next two years. This"Server"based job structure is driving me crazy. I have not

successfully backed up all of the servers for two weeks becuase of the changes.

I had one job to check each morning I now have 9 and they don't run properly.

I get this "The job missed its scheduled start time by more than 15 minutes. The job will be rescheduled for the same time the following day."   and I don't want the job rescheduled! I want them to work.

 

Not happy,

Dave Wade

a-ron
Level 2

I installed Backup Exec 2012 at the first of my clients today - Took me a bit to figure things out again...

 

But first of all, the job monitor sucks. I can see the active job at the bottom, but no way to see it - this was the case during Inventory jobs.  Why cant you click the Active Job button at the bottom and go straight to the monitor ? Terrible...

 

And NOW, I'm seeing we can't do Multiple servers in a single job ??? Are you kidding Symantec ???

 

And you've wanted people to wait months for something that is a basic feature in any backup software ? not to mention something you've had in previous versions ???

This is peoples BACKUPS, not exactly something IT folk take lightly. We dont have time for this crap. WTF are you guys smoking over there ?

Brutal....rolling back to 2010 tomorrow I guess.

 

lol, marking all the Symantec Employee posts as 'Offensive', because that's what they are. What a joke.....I'll be fore-warning the other 30 technicians in my company, and our sales department of this.

Elizabeth_Teffn
Level 4
Employee

a-ron - I totally understand that you feel you have to roll back to 2010, but would you be interested (willing?) to take a look at what we have in development? 

You touched on some pain points: job monitor, multi-server backup jobs, active jobs...  We have updates to remedy these issues and I'd really love for you to take a look at this and give me your feedback.  I have a full environment virtually setup and I would really like to know if what we are working on will solve the problems you are having with the new version.

If you are interested, check out the available times.

Regards... Elizabeth

strims
Level 3
I actually thought this was a problem for me because my lack of knowledge of the new 2012 interface (I've been using backup exec since it was Veritas). After being frustrated over the past month I finally decided to google "mulitiple servers one job symantec 2012" only to get here as a result. I cannot believe the product was intentionally modified this way! Who in their right mind could even fathom that this was an improvement for administrators??? Wow. We are now looking at Barracuda devices to acheive our backups. Backup is very important but shouldn't require hours every day to manage it. Symantec, you really screwed up on this one.

a-ron
Level 2

I'll admit I'm sorry for the harsh comments last night - I spent a good part of the day getting everything up and running for a client, then logged on after hours to finish pushing out agents- then discover the issue with backing up multiple servers.

 

But, like I said - I don't have time for anything like that. I work in a managed services scenario and Upgrading to Backup Exec was part of a large project with strict timelines.

Actually, as I type this, Backup Exec 2010 is installing.  I called Symantec Licensing this morning to downgrade.

 

Good luck with your situation over there.

a-ron
Level 2

Oh BE 2010....How I've missed you.  Also, it's able to backup my Windows 2000 server !  Win x2 !

danger240v
Level 2

I’ve used and recommended Backup Exec for my customers since Seagate owned it. No more.

The 2012 interface is one of the least intuitive interfaces I’ve ever used. I’ve had to research how to perform the most straightforward of tasks and then research why it didn't do what I expected. I’m not saying 2010 was perfect but it was far more straightforward and people have grown up with it.

All of the ‘improvements’ pipelined for 2012 (like multiple servers per job) is simply putting back stuff that was already in 2010, so to avoid having to contact Symantec to get a downgrade, why not just re-release 2010 and let the customer make their choice? 2012 will soon find itself in the same dustbin as Microsoft Flight.

2012 forced me to do something that was long overdue and we've now changed our backup solutions to use block-level backup software (ShadowProtect). If I’m stuck with a tape drive somewhere and 2010 is no longer available, I’ll just have to find something else.

Symantec take pure and functional products that people have used happily for years and eventually turn them into bloated and unreliable dross.

 

VVito
Level 2
Employee Accredited

 

Symantec is the market leader in backup and recovery, offering solutions for companies of all sizes.

Symantec decided to change the user interface to give to the end users a better visibility of the protected environment and also a better future along the evolution of the backup and recovery technologies.  

Elizabeth, is conducing remote usability sessions to gather user feedback on Backup Exec and there are some date still available in September to talk to our customers to better understand their needs and be sure our technologies can satisfy the widest area of customers. Please, subscribe to her invitation to give your feedback.

Kind Regards

strims
Level 3
Symantec believes a priority in backup software for admins should be a visually appealing app? 2012 looks like a kiddie video game. Mission accomplished. I need function and reliability with ease of management, not bubbles.

Gregorious
Not applicable

Wow, should have done some more reading before assuming BE2012 would be an improved 2010.

Glad its still in trial mode as I am struggling to backup to tape & just don't have the time to continue stuffing about.

G

danger240v
Level 2

I agree, one of the customers we upgraded to 2012 has low bandwidth and remote controlling the BE console through a RDP session is a pain as you have to wait for the screen to refresh all the graphical rubbish. Will marketing people ever realise that IT admins aren't impressed by flashy graphics that needlessly use up half the screen?