BE 2012, Combine Backup Jobs to minize Tape Activity

[JuergenB]

In 2010 R3 i had some jobs combined to a single job.
This single job had to backup 4 servers onto one tape!

With this single job, the tape had to rewind only once and could be used in one "streaming action".

Now if i create Backup Jobs for 3 Servers i will have 3 Jobs waiting for each other to complete and every job will tell the library to get the tape and rewind or wind forward to the next empty space.

Is this by design or can i create jobs as a single streaming job?

Maybe someone can explain this to me.

Thanks

Jürgen

[pkh]

Unfortunately, with the new server-centric approach of BE 2012, this is the way it is going to be, i.e. the tape is going to unload between jobs.  You can't combine jobs from different servers in BE 2012.

[Riyaj_S]

I assume that you are refering to multiplexing : http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH10085 (What is the difference between multiplexing and multistreaming?)

Backup Exec currently dosent support multiplexing and multistreaming, however this is supported by NetBackup.

Hope this helps.

[JuergenB]

No,

i mean the unloading/reloading the tape in the library between every job.
The library sounds like an old coffee grinder (dell told me that´s normal).

So with 2010 i could create a single job and backup all my file servers in a single job, loading the tape only one.

Now with 2012 the lib unloads / loads between every single job.

what a step back in time.

Would a "backup 2 disk 2 tape" load the tape only once?

Do i need one job to copy disk 2 tape backups in the morning or do i need several jobs.
For every backup job that did run in the night a single copy job?

[pkh]

I don't see a way to do one duplicate job to duplicate all your B2D backups to tape.

[Colin_Weaver]

For your information I have passed this scenario (Tape rewinds / dismounts back to library slots etc) over to Engineering to review as a potential enhancement requirement.

[pkh]

Great!  A couple of years ago, I asked for this feature, i.e. leave the tape in the tape drive between jobs and was told this is not possible with tape libraries.

[Siegfried]

Hello,

I'm looking for the solution too

[NazimAnsari]

There two things work first one is you create a combine selection list for all three servers and create a single job or second one is you create multiple selection list and cobine to one policy. About tape load/unload or rewind this thing as per your data and tape size because you have lto5 its have 3.x TB size what is your tape size.

[BowlingSS]

I am staying with 2010 R3 until Symantec corrects this or I will be going to find another backup solution.

Bill

[JasGre16]

I have also just updated to BE 2012.  The interface looks good but the functionality is poor compaired to 2010 R3.  The fact that you can not create 1 job for all of your servers is a step back in time.  It has worked great in the past, why would they take this feature away. 

In the past I had a total of 3 jobs scheduled.  Job 1 was for daily backup, Job 2 was for weekly backup, and Job 3 was for monthly backup.  1 single job backed up 11 servers and multiple VM's, This ran flawlessly for many years.  For the same results I have to create over 33 jobs in the new version?  Way to much work!!  On top of that it ejects the tape each time.  It took my first backup 3 hours longer last night than it did when running 2010 R3.  BAD MOVE SYMANTEC!!

My contract expires with symantec in 2 months,  I will be demoing a new solution. 

[MLGCA]

One of life's big mistakes: moving to 2012 when 2010 R3 was working perfectly.

I back up from disk to tape.  Every job I had set up on 2010 failed so I had to re-create the jobs and discovered that I couldn't seperate my full monthly backups to write to one media set and my incrementals to write to another media set.  The full backups always wrote directly to tape but the incrementals went to disk and were then duplicated to tape.  Now every job is failing because it is running out of disk space. 

1. Does this mean with 2012 I have set all backups to write directly to tape?

2. Since I cannot group servers based on the job, does it mean that different tapes will be allocated to each server?  If so, I'm in deep, deep trouble as I have eaten into my tape budget.

3.  Anyone considered going back to 2010 and if you have, how much of pain is it?

Thanks,

M

[TTT]

I'm struggling with the same problem.  I had one job scheduled, with one policy combining 9 templates (daily/weekly/monthly versions of backup/duplicate/export) and managed their order using template rules.  That's how I've had it since Backup Exec 10d!  1 job managing multiple physical + virtual servers.

Now all that's disappeared in BE 2012, and I have what you have- job after job after job after job after job after job after job listed.  Instead of looking at a single job log to determine success/fail, I have many green or red indicators on a huge list that means nothing unless each one is opened and dealt with.  Server groups aren't working like I expected because once I create a job on a group, I see no way to edit a server's job either.

And just now (to stay on Tape topic) I realized there's no way to drag/drop media from one set into another (e.g. dragging keep/infinite back into scratch).  I have to click into the details of the set, click the media, click Associate with Set, click the set I want, and hit Enter.

Is there something I missed to enable drag-drop again, or is it really gone?  And if it's really gone, why did they eliminate [intuitive drag/drop] in favor of [4 clicks + 1 keypress]? 

It seems like this new version traded power for "easy/new user interface".  I want the option to bring back my "IT Professional" interface.  If they were so big on the Workflow idea, that's great- but have the Workflow idea create [selection lists+policies+templates+template rules+backup jobs].

[JasGre16]

I had to go back to 2010 R3 the new one was to much of a pain in the A##.  I had the same issue,  I had 31 different jobs (I used to only need 3) and all 31 of them went to a different tape.  I found a way to make it group to 1 tape but it still takes a lot more setup and now it ejects the tape after every job and has to queue before starting the next job.  It added about 3 hours to my total backup time.  Very Frustrating.  I don't think I will be upgrading my Symantec Contract when it is up in a few months. 

It was not that hard,  I just had to call support to have them revert my activation keys back to the old version.  I had saved my configuration before I upgradded so I just uninstalled 2012, re-installed 2010 and restored my settings.  

[MLGCA]

I redid all my backup jobs and worked some really wonderful tech support people.  I believe I'm in a good place right now.  I'm still ironing out a few wrinkles in my backup policies to meet the new version's requirements  I have to grudgingly admit that I'm starting to like 2012's server-centric approach. 

[Carlos_Quiroga]

Dear Users:

Yes, it can be a painful process, to get used to the new interface, and to implement the server centric backups. But it truly is a step forward in the right direction.

In previous versions Customers would configure backup jobs to include many servers and resources in one job. And many times, the failure on one resource would result in the complete job failing, and it would really make it hard to troubleshoot the problem being the backup so extensive.

With the new model, all servers are protected individually and the failure on one server can be isolated in an easier and quicker way.

I suggest that you continue trying the new approach, and I am almost sure that you will find it suitable after some time.

Regards,

[James_Avery]

Interestingly enough, I DIDN'T have any multiple server selection lists. All of my servers had their own selection list, but were backed up via multiple policies. I could add, remove, change backup times, jobs, with only a couple of clicks of the mouse, and Bob's your uncle.

My backup world has now gone from 328 scheduled jobs to, at last count, 784 scheduled jobs. I now live in "clickville" if I wish to modify the backup process for more than one server, and GOD FORBID! if you want to back up a SQL server. Can you say, "Let's create 3, NO! 4 jobs for this server."

Talk about a vast improvement.

"Oh, no, not another learning experience."

[aharte]

Symantec, you made a dogs dinner of this.  In my case from one tape to four, and having to manually try and schedule the jobs using cli is not a commercial solution. 

I think I may have a solution, there is an option to duplicate backup sets from storge to tape, which appears to work but you can only schedule it once, no recurring schedules, different media sets etc. And you must manually select the backup sets to enable the duplicate option. 

EDIT:: After testing it does work to duplicate backup sets from storage to tape, BUT you cannot select more than 63 backup sets at a time to duplicate to tape so not a solution unless there is another method of selecting all backup sets for the duplication job via cli.

Is their any cli command or workaround to schedule a push of all backup sets on particular disk storage to Tape? 

[Sush---]

You may also try the solution provided in this technote:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH189306 : How to back up multiple servers to a single series of tapes in Backup Exec 2012

Thanks,

-Sush...

[aharte]

Critical point in the above linked post thanks SUSH, http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH189306 : for help with issue of multiple tapes.  Media sets a given, but more importantly for me is if you have a tape library, do not select it as the target device instead select the individual drive.