I recently was adding a daytime backup for critical files on all my remote servers for some of their database files. Originally, it used to just have a scheduled task that ran a script to compress the DB and Log files into a simple ZIP and then copy up to a server via the script. I purchased the Windows Server Agents and installed them on all the servers because I wanted to improve the backup abilities for other files that are backed up nightly. Since I have the agent, I figured it would be best to update the daytime backup to just simply create the database and log copies locally, then later from the Backup Exec server backup the files it copied over..
Backup time: 4hrs 50minutes.. absolutely killer...
Which that kind of time is disastrous.. The ZIP script wasn't even that slow..
So then I updated the remote servers scheduled tasks to still create the ZIP backup, but just do not copy up to the corporate server.. Then updated the Backup Exec selection list to be the ZIP file specifically..
Backup time: 45 minutes.... reasonable for sure!
Now, I know the agent is supposed to be compressing on the fly and sending the files up.. So you would expect with a file already compressed into a ZIP that it wouldn't make a difference.. but I'd say... 4hrs 10minutes is absolutely a crazy difference.. Does anybody know how to make sure the Agents are truly compressing the files on the fly????
Otherwise.. I'm wondering why I bought the agents for these servers if scripts and zips perform better..
Otherwise.. I'm wondering why I bought the agents for these servers if scripts and zips perform better
Because without the Agent, you cannot grab the SystemState, and thus cannot do a DR type restore? (just guessing 
)
or
because if the database supports agent backups, you must have a RAWS installed to see the database?
