Backup Exec 2010 Multiple issues with CASO / SSSO / and Deduplication

[Kenny_Mclauchla]

Hi I am in the process of gathering our support details together to raise some calls with Symantec support. However I thought id start a topic on here to get the thoughts of other users.
I am in the process of deploying a 6 server multi site HP and Backup Exec 2010 backup infrastructure

SITE 1

2 x DL380 G6 Backup servers – Connected to SAN fabric via 3 HBA’s (Media Servers)
1  x MSL 9086 with 4 x LTO 4 tape drives also fibre attached
1 x MSA2000 SAN with 34TB of SATA Disks
Tape library is shared between both media servers

SITE 2

2 x DL380 G6 Backup servers – Connected to SAN fabric via 3 HBA’s (Media Servers)
1 x MSL 6030 2 X LTO 4 Tape drive and FC to SCSI card
1 x MSA2000 SAN with 34TB of SATA Disks

SITE 3

Has not been deployed yet but will be the same as site one with some additional disk space and an extra MSL 4048 tape drive

We have what should be quite a simple backup remit

File Servers and User data will be backed up to a 16TB deduplicated Storage folder (The intention is to possibly use off host backups to backup data over SAN fabric direct to the media servers)

All other servers will be backed up straight to tape.

We have no need for Exchange/Sharepoint/SQL agents and VM’s are being backed up by another product.

Issues:

Deduplication:
So far Deduplication has not worked at all the deduplication folders on 2 of the servers show as constantly in use but there are no jobs using these devices.  Even if the folder is deleted and re-created no jobs can backup to the storage.
 
 
CASO
The CASO server marked one of the media servers as being offline, even when the media server its self was working correctly. No amount of reboots or service restarts would resolve this. In the end we had to reinstall BE 2010.

SSSO / Media severs
A number of jobs for no reason on one of our media servers when trying to write to the shared tape changer will sit at Queued and wait for hours with no indication to what it’s waiting on. There is a tape loaded into one of the drives but nothing else will happen the only way to cancel the job is to restart the services and or server.

Does any one have any recommendations of fixing these issues is the CASO option worth it or are we better to simply use standalone media servers? As this seems to be the cause of some of my BE nightmares.

[RahulG]

Refer the following documents 

http://support.veritas.com/docs/340834 Best practices for Backup Exec 2010 Deduplication Option
http://support.veritas.com/docs/347680When trying to make any changes to a DeDuplication folder the following error occurs "Invalid Physical Volume Library Robot Identifier"
http://support.veritas.com/docs/348035When a media server that has the Deduplication Option installed on it is promoted to a SSO (Shared Storage Option) Secondary server, Deduplication devices are removed from the Devices view in Backup Exec. In addition, the Deduplication services are stopped and set to manual.