- Why is it when ever I backup something the Network credentials are greyed out and you cannot add any username or password in the fields.
You only are prompted for the Network Creds if storing the image on a share on the Network. If your storing it locally (or possibly on a mapped drive) this field is greyed out!

- When doing a backup of a drive, what is the advantage or not of including System and temporary file. Sure Temp files may not be usefull. however dont system files store the important data, (mmm isnt active directories stored there, cant remember). (of course it uses more space, but Im more concerned with backups than space at this time)
Are you talking about backups taken with System Recovery? Personally I would NOT use System Recovery as a backup program. It is a recovery program designed for full recovery of your systems. Backup Exec for Windows Servers is probably your best bet (plug!) for normal file backup - especially backups of important servers like DC's etc. AD is presented in the System State section when backing up using Backup Exec for Windows servers. From version 11d onwards you can restore individual AD items from your Backup Exec backups. Hope this makes sense?

- I have been looking at incremental backups. Why is it that these only appear to be if you do a complete backup of the disk rather than a file and folder backup or am I wrong ??
As far as I know you can perform a base image backup of a drive and perform incrementals thereafter. Again there is a bit of crossover here between what your objective is with the product and what mine would be Colin. I'm not saying you are wrong in what you are doing. I am merely suggesting that you look at Backup Exec for Windows servers for your file backups. You could download a trial version of it and try it out if you are unfamiliar with the product.

Hope this helps?
Good Luck,
Gilly

thanks for your thoughts.

We actually have backup exec for windows and we have an sql and exchange component. But Here are the issues.

We are a charity not that that matter much but to upgrade to the latest version is $2800 then the yearly fees of perhaps 1000 dollars.

Secondly it is almost impossible to restore to NEW HARDWARE with the backup exec. We have tried and failed every time. In fact if you call the sales people at Symantec they will tell you so. Some have done (Hero's) it and there are a few documents the have been written to do this but for the life of me it does not work. The truth is that for us the thing that we fear most is if the computer dies, MB goes or something like that. We do not have any plan to recover, that is, despite our attempts to do this with all of the BE software we have for our systems, it does not work for us. It seems absolutely stupid for us to have a BU plan that does not allow us to BU to different hardware. If the computer goes it will be installed on new hardware. Who other than big corporations can have a standby identical server sitting there ready to be swapped in just in case.

On a personal note I think MS and Symantec should be hung up for a writing software that is so hard to move to new hardware and second for selling BU software that as far as our trials are concerned make it impossible OR SO HARD that it essentially doesn’t work. So now we have to buy yet another bit of software to do what in my opinion BU software should do (sorry I digress).

The System info check box is perhaps a little confusing. Because If you did a complete restore w/out the system data, would the AD info be there? if that is where it is stored. Or is it stored somewhere else as well so you dont really need it if you did a complete restore?? The documentation with the software is sort of dumb it often says this does this giving some scan explanation of what is obvious. I have searched in the help file for what the system backup does but can’t find anything.

Thus Im confused?

Thank you.

Hi Colin,

Yes it is very difficult to recover to any hardware with Backup Exec. it is a backup product. I was implying that you use both products - not choose between them but the fact that money is obviously a constraint changes things.

Ok you can use BESR for Backup but in my opinion Backup Exec for Windows servers is better!

"The System info check box is perhaps a little confusing. Because If you did a complete restore w/out the system data, would the AD info be there? if that is where it is stored. Or is it stored somewhere else as well so you dont really need it if you did a complete restore?? The documentation with the software is sort of dumb it often says this does this giving some scan explanation of what is obvious. I have searched in the help file for what the system backup does but can’t find anything. "

And this is why I wouldn't use it for Backup. I can't answer that question to be honest. I use BESR only for full recoveries in which case the imaged server comes back the way it was...AD and all!

Sorry to be repetitive here but can you outline once again what your intention and objective is when using BESR? Is it purely for Backing up or do you wish to recover systems also.

Regards,
Gilly

Colin -- If you use the drive imaging capabilities of BESR, it will always capture the AD data within the image.  This of course assumes that you are imaging all the drives where the AD data  and transaction logs are stored.  Keep in mind that an imaged domain controller is also subject to whatever tombstone period is set in your AD configuration.  The default is 60 days, but can be set to 180 days. 

I agree with Gilly that the separate file and folder backup capability of BESR is not that good.  I would use NTBackup instead if nothing else was available.  NTBackup is essentially a pared down version of Backup Exec for Windows Servers, and you can capture AD and Exchange databases with it.  You wont' be able to do granular restores of those objects, but ordinary files and folders will always be capable of individual restoration.

If you do choose to use BESR's file and folder backup, it might be wise to use it in conjunction with NTBackup.  Have NTBackup do a system state capture and store the backup file on the hard drive.  Then in the BESR file and folder backup, include the location where the system state backup file was stored.  Please note this is not a substitute for doing a disaster recover image of your server.  This only assures that you will have a copy of your AD data elseware, in the event an AD restoration is needed on a tombstoned or corrupted DC.  Please see the following technote for more info:

http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/293465.htm

The technote is geared more toward imaging domain controllers with older versions of BESR, but the system state capture info would apply to your needs.

I've done the whole recover a DC using BE and IDR! Ah the memories! Thank god for BESR!

Gilly

Well as a global answer,

We want a backup of the system so we can restore individual files.
AND
We want a backup so that in the event of a hardware failure we can completely restore the system.

Presumably that’s what everyone wants. I think most people would be surprised to know that if the system crashes and the have BE that to restore to new hardware is very difficult and near impossible. They are living with a confidence that is undeserved. Perhaps if you have the support plan which is expensive you can do it? But the online helps are not very helpful.

The issues are that the cost of carrying all this existing software is expensive. And if we upgrade from 9 to 12 it will cost several 1,000 dollars. The problem in part is that the current BE solution doesn’t (for all reasonable purposes of our conversation) easily restore if the server completely dies, building burns etc. Because it really cant restore to new hardware. Thus we have been considering just buying the BESR do the whole job, backup individual files and restore complete server.

Now I hesitate to say this because I’m sure that the Symantec people are rolling over in their desks saying no no no no please buy BE and BESR, because basically they are going to loose money. And I’m sure they will in the future some how cripple the software so we must buy more not less. But frankly I’m not that excited about the Symantec system of selling, first when you call in just to ask for a price it takes about 20+ minutes to get anyone. That’s when I actually want to give them money, and then when you get pushed over to their resellers, they basically (despite that they are one of the largest in the country, CDW) they have hardly even heard of BE or BESR and I’m STILL waiting for a final price to possibly buy their software. The "Channel" is slow and uneducated regarding products. When you sell 1000’s of things and want to move from sale to sale, cause your sales manager is yelling at you, you don’t spend much time learning. It took some time to explain to the sales man that I didn’t need Server lic or XP and what I really did need. (Sorry personal rant ignore previous paragraph)

So basically I’m trying to backup the systems and have a complete failure answer.

We also have SQL Servers. They don’t have sql software for BESR, but isn’t SQL just a bunch of files. Cant I just backup those folders (after doing a complete backup of course) and if there are any issues restore those folders. And be back up and running ???

What we do is not critical eg while we are a 7/24 operation, as long as we have reasonable backups that can go back a day or so that’s fine.
When I look at the software it looks like it should do both of the things IM looking for, it doesn’t have some bells and whistles and is missing some things that may be important so that’s really why Im trying to sort through it all.

The idea of backing up with ntbackup is an interesting one. Certainly on just plain file servers using a BESR and ntbackup might be a good idea.

So there are my needs.

Hi Colin,

I understand your plight. I don't work for Symantec and I was merely pointing out the technical pros and cons of each product.
NT backup might best fit your needs in terms of a backup solution.
It is true that you can perform "Dumps" of your SQL data every evening and then back up the flat files. I would recommend testing this fully with NT Backup before you decide you are happy.

Hope you get sorted...

Gilly

Colin -- If you have Backup Exec for Windows Server version 9,  I believe you can capture the system state with that as well.  For file and folder backups, version 9 is perfectly adequate in a Windows Server 2003/2000 environment.  Do you have the Exchange and MS SQL agents for this version of BEWS.  That would make restoring SQL and Exchange easier

As for backing up MS SQL databases, the databases have to be put in a consistent state to be backed up.  You can't just think of them as another bunch of files to be backed up.  Supposedly there are "crash consistent" databases, but that is something I don't want to get into now.  There are several methods for making the databases ready for backup.For VSS aware databases like SQL 2005 or Exchange 2003/2007, BESR can interact with the VSS providers to make the backed up databases usable.  For Exchange 5 and MS SQL2000  the respective services have to be stopped before the backup and then started afterward   With BEWS, the optional agents take care of  "quiescing"  the databases during the backup process.

There really isn't a one size fits all solution for your needs.  There is talk on the BEWS forum that BEWS is now being offered with a disaster recovery option that includes BESR. 

I think you would benefit from having a knowledgeable IT consultant visit your site and getting a first hand view of your operation and discussing your goals.  Since your employer is a charity, you may be able to negotiate a more favorable rate.  When I was doing consulting, I had several charities as clients.  If I believed in their cause, I would often deeply discount my fees, or give away a certain number of hours to the project. I always documented the pro bono and reduced rate  work on the invoice, so that the client could appreciate the value of my services.

Chances are your superiors sometimes attend meeting and events with other heads of charities and non-profit organizations.  Ask them to ask their piers about their IT disaster recovery stories.  That is how I got the director of the not for profit I'm employed with now to see the seriousness of having a viable disaster recovery plan.

One other thing, test your disaster recovery plan often, otherwise, all you have is an organized prayer.  Even if you don't have the spare equipment to test with, you can rent the equipment from time to time in order to test.  One thing I do is test Restore Anyware on any new server that I purchase before deploying it for its intended purpose.

Marco

I'm in a similar situation to Colin's. While not a charity, we are a fast-growing startup, watching costs and needs, and trying to make sure we keep an eye to the future so today's dollar spent can be leveraged later. We have a single server with 10 terrabytes, set up as 4 TB mirrored RAID plus spares. Based on my own background, I am most concerned with being able to do a bare-metal restore to whatever hardware replaces our server after something goes horribly wrong. It doesn't take a major fire, earthquake or flood to constitute a disaster.

After lengthy conversations, emails and IMs with Symantec's reps, I am testing BESR on both our server and desktops. We are using USB drives connected directly to the server and shared to the desktops for their backups. Our server has Exchange and SharePoint Services (not Server) and we are looking at using Granular Restore to round out the backup picture. We are only doing system backup (full disk, not file and folder). I've tested using the Restore Point Browser to restore individual files and it has worked well. I haven't started fooling with Granular Restore and mailboxes yet.

I'm still not positive this is the best direction to go. I'm definitely not going to buy a tape unit and BEWS on top of the expense of BESR (Colin - I feel your pain, but you at least get that nice  deep discount reserved for charitable organizations!).

So, our decision is based on the disaster recovery aspect of backups, and the fact that we should be able to grab individual files to restore as well. It's not an ideal solution but so far it looks pretty good from here.

If I've missed something important please let me know. Hope this helps.

Hello,

 I have been reading through the forums and wonder if you could please give me some advice?

With regard restoring domain member servers, Exchange, SQL, File and Print etc running windows server 2003- is there a valid lifetime that images would be useful for DR purposes?

I understand the tombstone lifetiem for domain controllers and wondered if there is something similar for domain members?

Thanks,
Newbie_2009!