04-30-2008 10:47 AM
04-30-2008 11:12 AM
04-30-2008 11:50 AM
04-30-2008 12:14 PM
10-24-2008 08:03 AM
I feel your pain. We invested in BESR and the Manager, based on the hyped-up marketing materials, and based on our positive experience with Veritas (we have a large scale NetBackup solution for our servers.) We thought, it's Symantec, it must be a solid product. Unfortunately, this is probably the worst piece of business/enterprise software I've used in my 18 year career. I apologize to the Symantec employees on this forum for saying this, I'm sure you work hard at this, and it's never fun to hear negative comments on your products. Unfortunately, the software has so many quirks and problems that it's a complete nightmare to try and depend on it from a IT perpective, especially given the cost. I've spent months trying to iron out the bugs and adaptimg myself to the quirky behavior, but I'm at a point where I'm giving up.
Here are a just few problems with the Manager, off the top of my head:
- the Backup Status of computers is almost never correct; I can't rely on this status, I need to drill down on each computer in BESR and poke around viewing logs, or physically verify the backup files (on the backup destination, or on the computer in question.)
- the Computer Status is useless as well. jobs are in pending state, "in progress" state, "updating license" state, almost constantly, and there's no real way to fix this short of a reinstall.
- tomcat java errors are rampant. Almost everything throws a java error. The implementation with tomcat was obviously an afterthought. I've had to re-install the Manager software, and Manager Control on dozens of computers with mixed results, mostly bad.
- The overall manager "console" interface is painful to use. The most basic of usability features are missing. For example, there's no provision to add simple comments or notes to each computer. (i.e. Joe's laptop, currently out for repair.); Drilling down in a computer's Properties, you can't add/remove/modify the backup job from that screen! Hello? it's a backup MANAGER; Hitting refresh while having a computer selected, the software unselects and scrolls you to the top! How ridiculous! I have hundreds of computers! Arrrggg.
Anyway, that's enough venting for me for today. I just feel completely let down by this very mediocre solutio that I have to painfully endure until we replace it.
11-01-2008 04:45 PM
11-06-2008 09:24 AM
11-12-2008 08:08 AM
Has there been any improvement in the manager for V 8.5?
It sounded like big improvements were planned for the manager functions in 8.5 when I attended the Web Hype-inar but I've not found any comments about it yet.
/RB
11-25-2008 08:25 AM
We've had a lot fewer problems with 8.5 versus 8.0. 8.0 I rolled out as a test case and only about half the clients worked, with many of the issues already on the forum.
Right now after a week of use of 8.5, we're seeing all upgraded clients backing up and reporting accurately, minus one. That one I was applying a license product key as it was rebooting, and now I cannot remove nor add the license key, and it claims its in trial mode. will deal with later.
12-13-2008 02:49 PM
01-13-2009 11:48 AM
We've been using the 8.51 BESR Manager for about a month now, so far we have not had any serious issues only a few quirks which I can over look. It still takes it a while when a backup fails to change from Backup Up to Needs Attention but we're talking hours not days now.
I've not had any clients (knock on wood) that have suddenly stopped reporting once I get them connected. Connecting W2008 servers has been the only real issues we've had but those have been solved in each case.
Looking better.
/RB
01-31-2009 01:26 PM