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Backup Exec 2012 Comments on UI

Jim_Harrison
Not applicable

These are my experiences with the BE 2012 upgrade:

- Lost all jobs in upgrade from 2010, had to create new sets

- Compounding on above - interface appeared easy but frustration ensued when configuring media, day 5 no backups is scary!

- DAG was recognized in server set but cannot select in edit settings - confusing. (update 8.14) It's not backing up the DAG. I had not installed the Agent for Applications and Databases. Once installed I was able to see the DAG. Also the licenses did not transfer correctly from 2010 to 2012 but I eventually got that worked out as well. Now my DAG is backing up from the wrong site. I am installing Exchange Management Tools for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 on the BE Server. This was not installed with 2010 and am not certain it was required but Symantec says it will help.

- Tapes were not immediately recognized and had to inventory before backups began to work.

- Tapes automatically set to not overwrite, I am still working on setting up a good media set but was able to get a better idea of functionality by using support

This means that after the upgrade I had to change all the media to overwrite or the backups would fill the drive and fail. When a backup fails everything stops, including the email system. It requires having to look at the BE interface to confirm whats happening -  no news is bad news.

Scenario:
7 tapes + 1 extra for failures - tape drive non-robotic - backup runs 01:00 all servers send success email - last server ejects tape and sends tape eject email - inventory scheduled 11:00.

First backup failure tape was not overwritable

Second failure same

Third Success on server 1 but tape fills and does not overwrite, not appendable, failure

Fourth success until 2003 server failure on permissons, verify ok but still fail, change user name to domain\user success

Fifth failure tape full, not overwritable

Called Symantec

Solution: Need to create two new media sets - Symantec recommends that you do not edit media sets with jobs attached.
Note: if you put the media in Scratch set it will overwrite and not append, better make certain your backups are working before you lose what you have...

Set 1 Overwrite Protection period - 1 hour, Append period - 1 day no media vault
Set 2 Overwrite Protection period - 1 week, Append Period - 6 days (not that it matters)

When you change a tape inventory, inventory, inventory!!!

During a backup job, you cannot inventory the tape, so if the tape pops out and you put in a new one...
Cancel backup, replace tape, inventory, re-start job. Assuming jobs cannot span tapes.

When you inventory a tape, eject tape, make changes to tape properties and apply - it will overwrite newly inserted tapes properties.
Inventory, inventory, Inventory!!!

Update:

Well it appears that Backup Exec 2012 requires Exchange Management Tools to backup a DAG properly. The DAG is able to be backed up but BE is trying to backup the offsite DAG, which has a slow connection. It would take more than the alloted time to perform the backup. Further research shows that Microsoft does not support 2010 Exchange Management tools installed on Windows server 2003. So I am starting to consider uninstalling BE 2012 and going back to 2010. Beforehand I have to answer the following.

Can I configure the DAG to backup from a local copy without EMT?

First I need to reboot the server after the licensing fiasco, then I will see what I can see.