Backup Exec 2012 Seems to have lost control of Multiple Server Backup Jobs

[jonnsideways]

Hi All

as many have said already, the Server based backup idea of 2012 backup exec seems majorly differnet, and I personally would argue that it has not made the program easier to use.

This said though, I have read the articles on how to backup multiple servers as one enterty, and note it greates an actual backup id number on the job that must be stored somewhere.

However the following is the issues I see.

1. When you schedule a backup job for say 3 servers, if you select overwrite on the storeage, the first server job runs and overwrites the tape, then the second one also trys to overwrite the tape, and causes the backup to fail.

2. You do not seem to be able control the order in which the backups run as you could before.

3. Once the new job has been created, you dont seem to be able to easily edit it agaoin as a single enterty.

4. I keep getting a "The Query for job view failed" error, that symantec have not advised me how to fix yet.

any ideas out there?

cheers

John 

[NickB111]

I must totally agree with Johns statements. Whilst there have been some improvements in 2012; The concept of using servers rather than Backup Sets does not work well for us.

For example our backups are spread over two tape drives which requires us to split the backup of Hyper-V Cluster however the server concept does not allow for selection of Machines if you also include other Servers in the backup group.

The end result is that where we had two backup sets we now have 5 with some set to append and others to overwrite - What a maintenace nightmare.

Nick

[NickB111]

Another issue is that when a job is running you can not longer look at the log to see how much has been completed and what remains to be done. If you look now all you get is the current server activity but no overview of others in the backup job.

[pkh]

1) You would have to set the second and subsequent jobs to append to the tape, rather than overwrite.

2) You can control how the jobs start by 

a) assigning different priorities - you have 5 choices

b) slightly staggering the start times.

c) chaining the jobs.  See my article

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/use-bemcli-chain-jobs

3) If you are grouping your servers to create your jobs, then you would have to edit each job individually

4) This is a known issue

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/issues/jobs-disappeared-be-2012-console-and-warning-noticed-towards-bottom-left-hand-corner-console-

[jonnsideways]

Thanks for the comments, but it still seems messy. as we all know, in the past you selected multiple servers into one job, that you could control buy assigning priorities.

I dont recall backing up servers suddenly changing? therefore still dont understand why symantec thinks they have improved things.

I do note that, if you drill into the backup job, you can see the % job complete, its just not on the front jod screen as previous editions.

shame, as the feel of the product is pretty cool.