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Impressions of BackupExec 2012

Bulbous
Level 5
Partner

Is it just me, or does anyone else absolutely HATE the redesign of Backup Exec? I have worked with BE since version 8, and I have become acutely familiar with the menus, where everything is, and how it works.

This redesign of the UI reminds me of the differences between Microsoft Office 2003 and Office 2007, only much worse. Menus are now hidden behind other menus, and everything has a completely counter-intuitive feel.

At first, I thought that the feeling would pass as I grew more familiar with the product, but in fact my dislike has grown as I have found more issues.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

417 REPLIES 417

charlesc_act
Level 3

totally agree. i rolled back to BE 2010 today and I its just a sense of relief that on monday the backups will be easy to handle (6 servers in 1 job), properly scheduled and organised.

charlesc_act
Level 3

for a mature product that does not need to play to an audience that needs the simplicity of something like an iphone, the new UI design is an unwanted and unncessary change. yes people will get used to it but the problem is that we are having to spend hours hunting through the new UI to determine what has changed, what is missing and what is broken.

I had to come to these forums to actually discover that the job centric approach had been removed (to my horror!) because I could not easily determine if I was just missing something in this completely reworked UI.

charlesc_act
Level 3

he was voted down i suspect because of an informationless 'like' post worthy more of facebook. if people like the product that is fine but we need to know how our scenario comapres to theirs. that would be useful information.

charlesc_act
Level 3

thank you for this information. some of the issues make more sense with now. however i think it is important to remember that for some of us, particular the one or two person IT departments for small businesses, tape backup still very much features in our day to day lives. i did recently consider a HD backup solution but only as a 'very fast tape' device. I don't have a need to invest in a device pool, I simply need relevant data from my 6 servers on a single device (a tape or hd) that can be used at a recovery site within 48 hours (we cannot afford to rent recovery space so I will be in PC World with a credit card the morning after our building burns down).

an occasional tape failure is not a problem with a full daily backup (possible for many small businesses) so the server centric view of jobs is less important. and in a disaster situation i would not be restoring full servers because the replacements would not be matched 1 for 1, i would be restoring data for newly installed applications.

BE2010 and all its iterations before were simple to manage and understand - I have one job for everything and I know that it is all on that single tape.

Elsewhere on this forum another symantec employee compared the change to moving from Windows XP to Windows 7. Well that may be true but if you look at the Windows 7 interface, there are still many ways for an administrator to set 7 into a 'classic view'. And does anyone run desktop experience on their servers? No, because they do not need to look nice and features need to be comprehensive rather than summarised.

 

crasho008
Level 3

Is Backup Exec 2012 works without issue for some people ?

I hesitate to upgrade Backup Exec 12.5 up to 2012...


Thanks.

JuergenB
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP   

If all your backup can be done with 12.5 stay with 12.5!

Wait till 2012 R2 will be released and if R2 Feedback is possitive, evaluate it first.

Get an image of your 12.5 installation.
 

mrnaturl
Level 3

Albeit took me a while to get used to the interface and understand all the new redesigns, I find this product to be too high maintenance.

I finally had nearly everything (full & incremental backups, cataloging, reports, emailing) working.

That was until that server crashed the last week of June. That ended up being the worst night of my Symantec life. Attempted a simple disaster recovery and the product would not do it. So I called support at 8pm. SIX techs, numerous arguments and 7 hours later my server was still dead in the water. THREE of those techs requested a WebEx on that server EVEN AFTER being told it wasn't functioning. THREE also INSISTED that I had to install an OS on the server before I could recover it. I was astounded they continued to argue with me that I had to install the OS. HELLO?? Why? A recovery just wipe the entire system out DUH!! I begged for USA support and couldn't get it. I begged for someone who had a clue about BE2012 and couldn't get one. I begged for managers and kept getting dumber and dumber people. I begged for 2nd level support and was refused. Come 3am, I was finished with support and simply hung up on the last person I spoke with.

Come to find out, someone did put in a 2nd level request the next day. The problem with this? Second level support did nto call me back until ONE FULL WEEK LATER! And that's how I found out someone upped the support level the previous week. Seriously?? ONE WHOLE FREAKIN' WEEK TO GET BACK TO ME IN A DISASTER SITUATION??? That cost you a customer forever!!

It then cost me over $2,000US to call someone in who was able to fix the cause of the problem in the OS.

So now that everything is back up and running, BE2012 again wants to be a pain in the ass.

1) It disregards some settings. It will not delete the incrementals after 7 days, like I tell it to.

2) It will no longer email my reports, even though nothing at all changed there and I double checked the settings.

3) It does not send me text notifications, like I set it up to do.

I don't dare call support as I don't need the stress of dealing with their idiots. I can imagine someone I talk to wanting me to reinstall the OS then Symantec again.

So, in spite of already paying for this product in May, I'm ditching it for a different solution. I just can't deal with Symantec anymore. In 2011, I ended my use of Endpoint Protection in the middle of a 3 year agreement because I got just as poor support when I tried to get issues address. I moved on to Kaspersky. I'm tired of Symantec costing me money that I can never recoup from them because I have to discontinue their product mid-term or pay emergency support rates for someone local to come in and help me out (I'm a 1 person IT department for 50 users) because Symantec's support personnel are complete morons.

LaughingGas
Level 2

I have been using BUE since it was a Seagate product and version 6. There were problems then and there are still always problems with the product but they trade new ones for old ones in each release. I think the last version that worked very well was 2008 before the release of Windows 2008.

Since then I am constantly trying to fight with issues surrounding backups. Always something. It has such an aversion to overwriting media as to be OCD. But it doesn't seem to mind if you miss 6 downstream jobs because it is hung up asking for overwriteable media.

Also, Exchange 2007 backups have been nothing but problems, but they say it it because of VSS and Microsoft. If I have this same problem after upgrading to 2010 and 2008 R2, I will no this isn't all Microsoft.

I like the UI mostly, but it has introduced UI bugs. Also, while the default job creates a full and incremental job, it refuses to allow you to run the full backup when you want with the Run Now command. That is mind numbingly frustrating to have to wait until the next full backup to see if the damn thing is going to cycle correctly.

I have only 10 servers to backup, and I should be able to count on this to be fairly automated, to set it, observe it WORKING and NOT BREAKING DOWN EVERY DAY for some stupid reason, and test it occasionally. I have about 10 other core responsibilities in my environment and do not have the time to be screwing with backup issues nearly every single day.

After 150MB of hotfixes, SP1, SP1a (all in just a couple of months) I have presently 2 open cases that were escalated to the 'Advanced Team' one over 1 week old. I had nearly as much trouble with BUE 2010 R3 as well, except the UI has introduced new bugs on top of the existing issues I was really hoping BUE 2012 would address. My job depends on this software and I would lose it if I got caught with my ass hanging in the breeze which this product seems determined to make happen since 2010.

The only thing BUE has going for it is that it is the skinniest fat kid in fat camp!! If only all the other competitors in backup to tape didnt suck so very much worse.

LaughingGas
Level 2

'nuff said.

StrongmanTech
Level 3
Partner Accredited

I, like 99% of you, absolutely hated this new version of BE. Long time admin on many BE servers, and this upgrade was the straw that broke the camels back for me.

I was also one of the few who had the opportunity to go to Heathrow, Florida, and submit my feedback face-to-face with the ones who did this to me.

Well, they listened. I just saw the major upgrade for the R2 release. They are giving us back the "many servers to one job" mode. The initial talks were to sequence the numerous jobs together, but, this was even scrapped to give back what many of us need to run our backups successfully.

So, hang in there. I am starting to see the light at the end of the very dark tunnel.

P.S. For all of you that have not upgraded yet... wait until 2012 R2 is released and save yourself the headache.

scottt709
Level 3

Will there be some kind of notice when R2 is available. I have not been running live update as I have everthing settled down

StrongmanTech
Level 3
Partner Accredited

I'm sure they will be posting to these forums, and also releasing the typical FileConnect emails when the upgrade is available.

You could also join the Beta at https://symbeta.symantec.com/. Don't know when this will start though.

I am antsy to get my hands on this, but, I'd rather they take there time and get it right.

TTT
Level 4

I was also one of the few at the User Summit in Florida <waves "Hello" to PCTeamAdmin & Bulbous>, and I agree with the above. The new Job Monitor brings back the centralized "power" of seeing exactly what's going on across the entire BE infrastructure (including Utility jobs and CASO environments). The improvements to the multi-server-job will closely simulate selection lists+policies+templates again (I used policies extensively), but here's the best part- the improvements allow servers to be easily added to existing backups (and decomissioned servers can be easily removed)!

Even further, those same improvements will prevent multiple tape ejects between servers... which increases speed of the job and reduces wear/tear on the tape and drive (and robotic library if one exists). This will be great for me (I use backup-to-disk, then duplicate those to tape (during the day) for storage offsite).

Yes, the interface is here to stay- but "clickfest" is being reduced with the job monitor and multi-server improvements.

I'll reiterate what's been said many times before- set up a VM and put BE 2012 into it before upgrading in production! You just need a 10GB C: drive and a 30 GB E: drive (for B2D), then you can get a feel for the new stuff. One of the suggestions at the User Summit was to supply an instructional video on how to create this VM... but really, you'd just install Windows into it, join your domain, install BE 2012 (and click Next, Next, Next), then go into BE and create a Backup-to-disk folder on E:, then set up a backup. It'll take an IT pro under an hour to do this and will save a lot of time/energy. I was fortunate to test it on pre-production hardware, but if I didn't have hardware, you can be sure I'd do it in a VM first.

(Technically you could install BE2010 on a VM and practice upgrading it to 2012 too!  But that would take longer than an hour.)

I saw a blog post by James McKey about the Beta program here: https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/new-beta-program-backup-exec-2012-r2  I'd also encourage any "real" IT Admins to sign up; this is a great way to tell Symantec what we like/don't like.  (By the way- if you're reading this message, you're probably a "real" IT Admin who uses this product daily!)

StrongmanTech
Level 3
Partner Accredited

Whats Up TTT. Maybe Symantec will do a re-union after R2 is out. smiley

IT_Chap
Level 3

Those of you went off to Symantec and met the team, what were they thinking.  Do they feel they were mislead by their beta testers who may have been too eager to please, or did they just know better than us about what we need and ploughed on regardless?

Were they shocked by the scale of the negative response, or was it wholly expected and they were prepared to ride it out?  Are they aware/concerned what this has cost all of us in time and lost backups?

What were they thinking?

mrnaturl
Level 3

Good info and thank you for it.

Albeit's too late for me. In my case after the incredibly inept support I received during a disaster I will never go back to Symantec. That's inexcusable as there's no way to recoup the thousands of dollars I had to spend because their support failed me.

Bulbous
Level 5
Partner

To tell the truth, we didn't focus at all on the history. In fact, we never really even discussed the "Why?" in our group sessions. The focus was completely on us - what our issues were, and how the assembled team could fix them.

I'm with you - I would have liked to have gotten a little more background on "Why?", and the other questions you mentioned, but to be completely honest that would have taken time away from "What do we do now?" which was the whole point of us being there.

Simon_Darby
Not applicable

....why do all my clients want to revert back to 12.5.  Having used the application since the Seagate days I can just about find everything although it is a struggle.  They don't have a hope. As much as I love my clients to contact me when they have issues and use my time, they are beginning to to ask me to look for alternatives.  I can't say I blame them.  I've resold BU Exec in all its forms for many many years and now I may have to stop!  The interface is slow cumbersome and dammned irritating

Judging on what my clients and other resellers are telling me, Symantec may not have the benefit of time to allow end users to come to appreciate it.  I have a feeling the damage has already been done.  Can we have a downgrade path please?

 

Nigel_the_Nerd
Level 3

This is to the product developers at Symantec - Have you forgotten rule ? Keep it Simple? The reason we used to live in the job monitor was because it told us what we wanted to know. The new server centric view is of no use in a large organization. If you are so thoroughly convinced it is better for us, give us the old interface as well, so we can compare them on the same version. Also with the VMware GRT function, why is it so hard to use? You go into the VM Ware host to run the backup, then you have to go into the server view and run the restore like it was a standard physical server. What is with that? Was it too hard to make the backup and restore run from the same spot? And what is with the Backup Status view on the home page? It tells you some jobs have succeeded and some have failed, but it doesn't have a drill down to let you see which!! And why is it impossible to produce a report that gives you a simple summary of what jobs ran in the last 24 hours and if they succeeded, failed or were rescheduled? Don't you think people need that in a simple view?

jerrys79
Level 4

Nigel_the_Nerd just reminded me of yet another feature I really hope they add to R2.  The ability to receive ONE email for all your jobs that have run in lets say the past 24 hours or something along those lines.  I currently get 2 emails for my 2 servers at my small site for successful/failed backups.  I can't imagine getting 25 emails if I upgraded my main site.  Since they are giving us back the "many servers to one job" modeI, I would assume this would also be added?