Ghost Solution Suite

I have installed Ghost Solution Suite 2.5 on the network of one of my locations.

The suite installed perfectly, the licenses registered perfectly and the client software was pushed perfectly.

I created an image and a create image task and a backup task and wish to start those.

Whenever I start those however, the console says it is waiting for the client, but nothing happens.

Is there something I still need to do, because I think I have made all needed items to start creating images.

The same goes for a backup task or a create image task.

It should all be very straight forward. I got 15 servers and simply want images from them in an online mode.

If that doesn't work I even want to go offline, but I'd rather have them being done online.

Also the server and clients are on the same Subnet, there is no Firewall activity and all network activity is open.

The traffic is in no way limited on the network.

Please help.

Please let us know the make and the model of the machine on which you are trying to create an image .

Also check the event log for the task which failed and let us know error details .

To so confirm if I understand your question correctly. Are you trying to image servers, and if so, what operating system is on the servers?  Or are you trying to use these 15 servers as the sources for your images.

Hi,

thanks for the replies.

The whole environment runs under W2003 Standerd Edition with SP1 servers.

The Ghost Server and all clients run under this OS version.

I have indeed 15 of these servers with varies roles (DC, File Server, Mail Server) which I wish to image and store on my central Ghost server so that their installation is secured on the NAS I attached to the central Ghost Server. 

All machines are Dell PE1850 hardware.

The only error I see when I start a task in the Ghost is an error in the app log of the eventviewer of the machine I wish to image (the client) is this:

It shows up once per task I start.

my image was not attached, so here it is (the error message).

Are the servers running 32 bit or 64 bit editions of W2K3 server?

everything is 32-bit

You guys gave up ? :)

This could be due to incorrect setup of the network switches. Have a search for past postings by Nigel Bree on the topic of IGMP snooping.

Hi,

This post had me worried but I hope this does not apply for Ghost Solution Suite 2.5 as I bought the product for the hot imaging function mostly: https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/vss-hot-copy-failing#comment-3933811

I am checking with our routing/switching administrators to see if there is IGMP snooping, but they already checked this VLAN and said there were no restrictions that could block these tasks.

I'll get back on the IGMP snooping.

While most of the information given out by the "official" support reps is wrong, in this case that's correct. Hot imaging is not just not supported, it's blocked, and I've explained why that is several times - it's an artificial restriction imposed because of the license fees attached to the "server" edition of the ex-PowerQuest V2i product line.

The underlying APIs for hot imaging don't vary significantly between server and workstation editions[*] - the justification for the price difference between the consumer ("Norton Ghost 15", which is using the Ghost brand name but technically unrelated to genuine Ghost) and server editions of the Symantec System is something I'll leave to your imagination. As the genuine Ghost product has never ever in its history had differentiated pricing for servers versus workstations, and because not being insane we wouldn't introduce differential pricing for such a minor feature, instead the feature ended up being blocked.

[*] Although the volume snapshot APIs certainly *are* a mess, because Microsoft royally messed up the versioning of the APIs - there are several mutually incompatible API editions in different SDKs, and building a single executable that can work with all of Windows XP 32-bit, Windows 2003/XP-64, and Vista and later editions takes some delicate footwork.

Ok then I sold and bought a product which is absolutely useless for the costumer.

It is based on the fact of this:

*Create base images from a live system using hot imaging.

which is contained in: http://www.symantec.com/en/uk/ghost-solution-suite

I can simply not just switch off the DC or Exchange server etc. to pull an image.

We have bought this product simply for the option that it was able to make images while the system was still running. I was probably better of buying a backup program with a DR function then.
 

Ok then I sold and bought a product which is absolutely useless for the costumer.

This shouldn't be a major issue, per the returns policy.

Thanks a lot for the heads up Nigel, I was pulling my hair out on this one.

I will return Ghost and try to see if there is better solutions... hopefully for the same price range.

Acronis do a range of backup products of a similar price, as do Paragon.

Is it Backup or is it Imaging ?

Both I believe. Try the evals and see if any work the way you need them to.