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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

ZacTech
Level 4

After watching the videos about the new product it seems their main goal was to give a server centric view to help the admins. Why not change the reporting or dashboard interface to reflect that?  Leave the awesome backup methodology the way it was, but give a new view to checking on it. I have tried to be patient and post my issues on here, but almost all of them have to be fixed by using BEMCLI.  Should an enterprise class product "require" that much manual footwork? The worst part, is the video boasting their awesome migration proccess. I am not saying this product is 100% garbage, but I feel like a beta tester.  This big a change should have been a new product with a new name.  

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified

When you are appending to a tape, make sure that the next job does not start before the job that is writing to the tape ends.  While it is being written, the tape is marked as not appendable and the next job will switch to overwrite mode and will never switch back to append mode.

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

...maybe take the time to read my comments...I HAVEN'T INSTALLED BE 2012 AS IT IS SUCH A CHANGE FROM PREVIOUS VERSIONS!!!!

There you have it...at no stage have I recommended upgrading (please read VERY carefully again). All I said was that if someone didn't do due diligence in investigating the product, the blame also lies with them as it was such a significant change. I'm not defending Symantec (I also don't work for them wink)...it's going to take a significant amount of work to change the application and gain back some ground.

 

UFO
Level 6

Changing the UI from previous versions was, I think, done to make it easier for new customers to get in to the product. I have seen my admin telling me that new UI is easy to undestand (he was working with BE 2012 for the first time). Maybe that was the reason for new UI?

Yes, it reminds me UI transition from Office 2003 to Office 2007 and then to Office 2010. And some Microsoft customers also complained that old UI was better (=familiar). Microsoft was doing a lot of focus groups study before making new UI. I suggest for all of Symantec BE customers not to hate new UI, but test it on your own focus groups. If it doesn't fit - don't hate it, just keep using BE 2010 R3 - it will still has this familiar UI and approach, and new technologies like V-Ray as well.

BTW: as result of complaints from customers Microsoft did interactive guides for Office products with step-by-step demos on how to find old menus in new UI. It was very helpful for Excel. Does anyone see such demos on BE 2012?

Tech_No
Level 3

If IT professionals are complaining about BE2012 then surely there is something wrong with the new features/UI.  Would you rather listen to your guinea pigs than IT professionals, who are there doing day to day job in the real world?

I hope BE2012 won't be like Symantec AV, which is least favourite product when it comes to AV!!!

 

robnicholson
Level 6

Ohh come on, the old BE interface was hardly intuitive. Sure if you've spent 10+ years using it, you are going to know your way around it. I too took part in the usability questionaire and early trials but unfortunately due to lack of time, I was unable to give it "due dilligence".

I'm not defending Symantec at all because even without this user interface re-working, I had serious misgivings about the product but that was more to do with the underlying engines than the user interface.

The mention of Acronis above is valid in that their imaging product used to be pretty good and then the user interface went horrible. Fortunately, they've stuck at it and the v13 isn't bad now. The fact that many of the glaring bugs have been ironed out helps as well.

I hoped that BE2012 was a complete re-write of the product but it's not. I've not checked, but I would imagine the underlying systems are very similar. BE2010 had all the hallmarks of a system that had evolved over time with many of the original developers having left. For example, the marked difference between the various way different back-up media was treated and the fact that errors often referred back to terms that applied to tape but were applied to disk backup jobs.

Perform of the de-duplication engine is pretty dire and it doesn't take advantage of mulit-threaded processes when hashing. And don't get me started on the mess that is "Backup of DFSR": very slow, requires huge restores (16GB RAM for us on the media server!!), causes replication to restart if you restore a file, doesn't work with the advanced disk based option etc.

The user interface is the least of our worries ;) I've tried to like BE but next year, it's out the door.

Rob.

robnicholson
Level 6

Wow i just created more work for myself, 2012 is less intuitive - have to relearn to think pretty buttons.

Hmm, I think until it's been used a bit more, it's unfair to label it as "less intuitive". Developer are in a no-win situation when it comes to user interface re-design. It is always going to annoy somebody. Just look at the fuss over Facebook replacing the profile with the timeline.

But in general, it should turn out better as long as Symantec engage in a rapid fix & release cycle. If people never took chances with user interfaces, we'd still be working at the command prompt exclusively.

Microsoft tried to maintain compatability with Windows on their mobile phones. Look where that got them. They finally made the decision to dump Windows Mobile OS which will have caused all sorts of similar responses from developers but they had to do it. I applaud them for doing it - unfortunately they probably did it too late.

whats the best alternative backup product ?

What's interesting here is that often the grass isn't greener. It's just a different shade of green. That said, we looked at Unitrends and it looks good but pricey for the amount of data we wanted to backup.

I've often said that "Backup software" would be something I'd write if I had the capital ;) I'd ignore tape though...

Cheers, Rob.

 

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

...and I hope the Symantec guys are reading all of this because there seems to be a deafening silence around it all.

I won't be recommending my old team go to BE 2012. BE 2010 has been very stable for us. New clients with simple backup environments, maybe...

robnicholson
Level 6

All I said was that if someone didn't do due diligence in investigating the product, the blame also lies with them as it was such a significant change.

Very true and in these days of virtualisation (e.g. Virtuabox or VMware workstation) and grace periods with most software, there is no excuse for giving it a bit of a go in a test environment.

I'm equally not defending BE too much either as I've had a nightmare and sleepless nights worrying about the state of our precious company data.

I just lament that Symantec didn't take this opportunity to re-write BE from the ground up into a world beater and have just, as far as I can tell, changed the front-end and way jobs are handled. It could be, for us, the final straw in moving to a new vendor after many years with BE.

As I said in another post, a redesign of the user interface was in order as it had, over the years, become overly complex and, worse, inconsistent. But just changing to a glossy front end won't instantly make it it more reliable and peformance faster which are two MUST have requirements of a backup system.

Rob.

robnicholson
Level 6

If IT professionals are complaining about BE2012 then surely there is something wrong with the new features/UI.

There appear to be two distinct gripes here: firstly, that the user interface has drastically changed. Sorry, get over it and move on ;) Secondly, that the new server centric as opposed to job centric view is harder to use. This is a justified gripe IMO but I didn't consider a problem as I'm only backing up four servers.

Cheers, Rob.

 

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

Yep, totally agree...

robnicholson
Level 6

Hi Craig,

Having battled on and off with BE 2010 over the last year, our environment is also now pretty stable and we're definitely in the "if it's not broke, don't fix it" camp. We've just renewed support for another year but "Review backup" is already on the strategy for 2013. I'll have a gander at the release version of 2012 but more out of interest and serious desire to upgrade.

Cheers, Rob.

PS. Why is Symantec too tight to license the spell checker on these forums? Those pop-up adds when you spell check are very intrusive.

robnicholson
Level 6

Spooky - Unitrends sales have just called ;)

DanielBickford
Level 6
Employee Certified

Well, I have been watching this thread, and don't like to jump in too often as this is YOUR forum (and I don't want to be seen as just defending BE).  Throughout the process of building BE 2012 we all knew there were going to be some that saw BE 2012 as "too much change."  We did everything we could think of to try to minimize the impact to all of you who have been passionate about Backup Exec over the years.  There is definitely room to improve, and that's why I want to thank all of you for posting your "concerns" here.  We can and will incorporate this feedback into future releases.

Obviously, we can't and won't make dramatic changes to functionality prior to the next release (that would present a whole different set of complaints), but we will take this feedback and try to help all of you through the difficulties you are experiencing with the changes in BE 2012.  The more specific, the better :)

Thanks to all of you!

StrongmanTech
Level 3
Partner Accredited

Why not add some fuctionality back. Yes, I don't care a lot about the new interface, but like anything else, we must adapt. Just wait until Windows 8 releases! Metro?!? What Corporate User cares about Metro?

I hear the biggest issue being with the server-centric mode. Why not add a new button, and make a few modifications adding Jobs back, and let the user switch between the two. Call it Simple and Expert mode.

Within the Expert mode, allow us to arrange our Backups by Job. In Simple mode, by Server.

I do understand that there is more work than adding a button, but, you have the technology for ALL prior years of BE to add this functionality back into the product.

Mark_McFarlane
Level 4

I feel the same way -- I would go from 2-3 backup jobs currently to more than 30 backup jobs....no way Im upgrading...I mentioned this during beta testing and was politely told -- it's much better in the new server-centric model.....not in my environment it isn't !

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

...head on over to the Ideas section and add your idea/thought in...you're probably going to get a good couple of votes up if you do! just post back here with the details and the link!

Mark_McFarlane
Level 4

I sure did -- it was terrible -- that's why I did not upgrade my production environment -- and will not be in the future...

Mark_McFarlane
Level 4

That is part of the problem (unless Ive missed something in my testing) there is no way to have a job start when another job finishes...you have to "guess" when the job will finish and then schedule the next job to start sometime after that "guess".....this is terrible when you have 30+ jobs to schedule....

Mark_McFarlane
Level 4

+1000 to what PCTeamAdmin said......