What is it?
Symantec Backup Exec Management Plug-in 1.1 for Kaseya is a plug-in for the Kaseya RMM platform. It is designed for Managed Service Providers (MSP). It enables the MSPs to remotely monitor the Backup Exec media servers in the customer environments.
All right, but how does this help me?
Well for starters it helps you by collecting the following information:
- Status of the backup tasks that ran on the Backup Exec servers. For e.g. Successful backup jobs, failed backup jobs, and so on.
- Active alerts generated on the Backup Exec servers. For e.g. jobs completed with exceptions, Database maintenance information, etc.
- State of the storage devices and amount of space available on the disk-based storage devices that are configured with the Backup Exec servers. For e.g. disk-based storage device has gone offline or the storage space has reached a critical limit based on the configured threshold.
- Various monitoring reports, such as active alerts, backup job history, license usage summary, and discovered machines summary report.
Sound’s cool where can I get it?
The plug-in is available for download from the Symantec support site and best of all its absolutely FREE!!! 
I have downloaded the plug-in, what next?
Now that you have downloaded the plug-in you would want to start installing it. However, before you start installing the plug-in you need to ensure that the machine where you are installing has Kaseya server installed. Also you need to carry out some pre-requisite configurations so that you are able to install and use the plug-in. The following is the list of steps that need to be carried out before you start installing the plug-in.
Enable Kaseya VSA API Web Service
- Logon to the Kaseya VSA console
- Navigate to System > Server management > Configure
- Check the “Enable VSA API Web Service” checkbox
Refer the screenshot below for details
Now that you have enabled the Web Service, we are going to configure the SQL Reporting services so that you can view the BEMPK plug-in reports.
Configuring SQL Reporting Services
This step is required for successfully registering the plug-in reports. If this is not configured properly, you might see a report registration failure while installation. However, this can be done after installing the plug-in also. In this case, you must manually run the report registration tool from installation folder; we will see this in detail in a later post. For now
- Go to System > Server Management > Configure
-
Click on change URL, refer the screenshot below
- Click “Edit” and enter the URL of the report server that you have setup, refer screenshot below
- Check “Specify Account” option, and enter the user credential that has System Administrator rights on SQL reporting server. This is a MUST to successfully register and run the plug-in reports.
- Click on the Save button
- Finally click on the “Test” button to ensure reporting services are configured properly, if everything has been configured properly then you will see a success message like the one shown in the screenshot below
Checking and configuring localhost access to Kaseya web services in IIS
Access to Kaseya Web services from localhost over HTTP is a MUST. You can configure localhost access to kaseya web service in IIS in the following way
- Go to IIS Manager > Default Web Site.
- Edit Site Bindings.
- If HTTP port 80 is configured to All Unassigned (*), nothing needs to be done, refer the screenshot below
If HTTPS is configured, it is necessary that Kaseya Web Services are accessible over HTTP from localhost
In case of HTTPS, do the following
- Configure localhost access on HTTP port
- Go to Default Web Site > vsaWS > SSL Settings
- Ensure “Require SSL” option is unchecked
- Go to Content View here, and browse “KaseyaWS.asmx” over HTTP, verify it opens KaseyaWS.asmx page containing list of web service APIs. Refer the screenshots below
Ensuring required Kaseya Hot Fixes are installed
It is recommended that Kaseya server is up to date on Hot Fixes before we proceed with installing our plug-in. This is required because for the plug-in to work there is certain web service API which must be present.
To ensure this follow the steps mentioned below
- Launch http://localhost/vsaWS/KaseyaWS.asmx
- Verify “AuthenticateWithAppSessionID” web method is present. If you do not see this method, you should ideally log a support case with Kaseya as these APIare delivered by Kaseya
So far you have downloaded the plug-in and are done with configuring the pre-requisites required for installing and using the plug-in. In the subsequent post I will guide you through how to install the plug-in.
1. Installing the Symantec Backup Exec™ Management Plug-in 1.1 for Kaseya®
2. Configuring Symantec Backup Exec™ Management Plug-in 1.1 for Kaseya®
