What is the best use case for BE15 Windows Agent and its down sides if any ?

[John_Santana]

Hi All,

I got the following license for the BE15 agenst:

SYMC BACKUP EXEC 15 AGENT FOR WINDOWS WIN PER SERVER BNDL STD LIC EXPRESS BAND S ESSENTIAL

I'm trying to make a good use of the existing licenses that I've got to protect my physical windows server, but not sure what are the downsides without the specific paid license for the agents like AD, SQL, Exchange, SharePoint agents.

is there any pros and cons when using this type of agent backup to the tape ?

Any idea and suggestion of what is the good use case or example would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

[RahulG · Accepted solution]

Well using the winfoeds agent you can just take backup of the files on the remote server. Ideally when you purchase and agent licese you get the windows agent license along with it.The backup without the agent i.e exchange, SQL, AD etc will not backup all the files and you may have to get the services down. Both backup and restoration would be complex without agent and would not be reliable.

[pkh · Accepted solution]

The AWS only allows you to backup files and folders. It does nothing to protect your applications/databases like Exchange, etc. Even if you shutdown the application's service, you would not be able to backup the application's files because they would be automatically be excluded from any backup. To backup these applications/databases, you need to purchase and install 1 Agent for Application and Databases license for each application/database on each server, regardless o of whether they are physical or virtual. These licenses will allow you to do hot backups and do restores on the fly

[Colin_Weaver · Accepted solution]

The main Backup Exec Server license allows you to backup the file system and system state of the server that is running Backup Exec - as such if this is all you need to backup then you won't need further licences.

However if Exchange or SQL etc, needs to be backed up on the server then you will need an agent license for Applications & Databases to cover each database. If you do not use the coreect license then the databases will not be backed up.

Note: the files used by the databases on the file system are excluded from file system backups as part of Active File Exclusion. Active File Exclusion silently excludes files that do not need backing up (Swap files etc) and files that should be backed up using a specific technology or agent (Exchange, SQL etc)

You could disable Active File Exclusion however you will then run into some issues

a) Any backup taken with the database servcies running would probably be inconsistent

b) because of point a) you would have to stop all the database servcies before running your backup

c) log truncation of the databses concerned (where appropriate) would not take place

d) You may have to manually exclude some things that do not need backing up or or are locked from backing up.

e) we wont be able to provide support if you have issues restoring. We might help with a 'reasonable effort but at teh end of the day this woudl be very limited.

The correct  agent (using VSS) provides

i) Consistent Backups while database is running

ii) Log truncation where applicable and configured correctly.

iii) Abilitity to use a recovery database (for Exchange)

iv) GRT capability to recover individual e-mails etc - without this capability if you only need to restore 1 e-mail you will have to use a recovery server environment and have real fun if the file level copy of your database is also inconsistent.

One point if you are backing up remote systems you don't need to buy a Agent for Windows License and an App & DB license for each remote server, the App & DB licnese does also cover you for the file system and system state of the server running the app.

[John_Santana]

Thanks all, so if it is just a plain WIndows Server with some application in it, the server can still be restored from the tape backup to the new or existing hardware (with bootable image) as if it were just shut down abruptly ?

I have no plan to install the AWS on the critical tier 1 servers like Exchange, SQL or AD it will be just a file servers for easy file based restore.

[pkh · Accepted solution]

 the server can still be restored from the tape backup to the new or existing hardware (with bootable image) as if it were just shut down abruptly ?

Yes, but not to the point of failure.  They can only be restored to the time of the last backup.

I have no plan to install the AWS on the critical tier 1 servers like Exchange, SQL or AD it will be just a file servers for easy file based restore.

How are you protecting these tier 1 servers?

[John_Santana]

Thanks guys.

The other TIer-1 servers are all virtualized already and backed up using other software.

[Colin_Weaver]

Additionally if you are backing up a remote file server:

1) Legally you still need an agent for Windows license so won't save any money

2) Snapshot backups and open file handling won't work properly

3) System State backup cannot be performed (as you have to do share level backups if no remote agent)

4) Incremental and differential backups are not supported (because the Archive bits and change journals are not correctly handled where the remote agent is not present)

[John_Santana]

Colin,

I do have license for the Backup Exec Agent for Windows Server available. So I guess it is all possible for those 4 points that you mentioned above ?