Backup Exec Console and Reporting?

[LUACE]

Hi, I am new to Symantec and a new sys admin for a company that has Backup exec 9x & 10x for 35 sites. As the new replacement sys admin I now have to mange backups for all the sites, and upgrading or changing our current backup infrastructure is simply not an option right now.  I am hoping someone can tell me how you are currently managing jobs for multiple sites? Does Symantec offer a Console or reporting mechanism to capture back up status for each site without having to log on to each server or set up email notifications? Thanks in advance and I apologize for the rookie question.

[CraigV · Accepted solution]

Hi LUACE,

I am not too sure about BE 9.x and 10x, but from 11D upwards, BE shipped with CASO...Central Administration Server Option.
This allows for either:

1. Centralised management of your jobs. You can create jobs, initiate jobs, delete jobs etc. from 1 server that manages other servers (Managed Media Servers). Databases can either be centralised on the CASO, or shared (if an MMS has a database problem, the CASO has a copy so you can copy it over if need be). You can use this option with fast bandwidth sites.
2. Centralised reporting (which is kind of what I use it for, where my media servers do their own thing, and I can see from the CASO server what's going on.). Databases are left on the media servers, and they send job logs when they complete a job. You'd ideally use this option with slow bandwidth sites.

So, I don't use CASO to it's fullest extent, and that's because we have sites in Africa and Asia with slow links. 11D was unstable, 12.5 (pre-SP2) was a bit better. Since putting on Service Pack 2, I've re-run this test in our environment, and so far so good.
The aim for me was to get 1 console in place for our service desk to check the backups on the various sites (34 in total) from 1 location. They can stop/start services, cancel jobs, initiate jobs, and see which servers are experiencing problems quickly (and while I am asleep =) )
It's a licensed component of BE, and a full installation is needed. From there you'd run through the task of adding servers into the CASO (I use the process through BEutility.exe), and it's quick and painless.
For added measure, I change the descriptions of my servers in the Managed Media Servers tab of the CASO's Backup Exec to show the site the server is on, along with a description. Makes it easier.
Here is a link to a document you can read up more on:

http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/278621.htm

Post any further queries here.

[Colin_Weaver]

If you don't have CASO, you can still use the Backup Exec Admin Console from one server to manage another - there is a menu option to change servers. However you can't see all the jobs across all servers at the same time and you cannot manage different versions of Backup Exec from one console.

CASO again still needs to be the same version across the servers (later versions allowed rolling updates - but this was an interim configuration and not something that should be used as a final solution). CASO provides better visibility of all the jobs in your environment

9.1 had a tool called EXECView - which is probably still downloadable from somewhere - however this tool suffered from limited development against Java and Operating System updates, was difficult to get all servers working with it and may not be very stable in current environments.  This tool was also view only - to configure job etc you still had to use the admin console.