Any opinions on BE 9.0 for Windows Servers?

[Andronium]

We have been using BE 8.6 for a couple of years now, and I haven't been especially happy with it. We're thinking about BE 9.0, but want to know if it addresses any of the problems we are having. Here are a few of the problems we have with it that would be nice to not have to deal with:

1. Job service periodically dies (once every 2-3 weeks) in the middle of a job, causing loss of the backup log, and forcing me to run another backup of the servers that it missed. Have worked with support on this, and they haven't been any help.

2. Catalog files have become corrupt on several occasions forcing me to rename catalog folder, cycle the services to create new catolog folder, and recatalog tapes to do a restore. BIG pain in the butt. Again, support no help in telling me how to prevent this.

3. Job fails on a corrupt file? Comon. How about "completed with errors" or something a little more specific. Getting tired of explaing to boss, "the job didn't really fail, it just says that. Really, I swear!" This makes the notification feature worthless because I'd be getting a page 3-4 out of 5 days.

In general, 8.6 seems pretty buggy. Does 9.0 improve on any of the issues I mentioned, or is is better an any other ways? Is there anyone out there who has been using it for a while who can provide some feedback?

 

[mwesol]

The interface is written in XML. I like the improvements made from 8.6 to 9.0. The reports are easier to read. In the Job Monitor window you can just show the last 24 hours of jobs. In my opinion they have enhanced it over 8.6 not just the GUI but made it run better as well.

Mike

 

[pedrovasc]

Can you help me please???

I´m trying to use the BE 8.6 and my jobs are failling

The error message is ´error I/O device´

I tried another backup program and it worked, but the Veritas program nothing happens.
I tested the drive with a Sony drive tester, my tape drive is a Sony STD9000, and the drive passed in all tests, like comunication, Write/Read.

Can you give a hint???
Thanks!!!

 

[donhans]

We recently upgraded to 9.0 to try and fix some of the very bugs you mentioned in 8.6. Running on an NT 40 SP6 server with Exchange 5.5, and another NT server without exchange.

Overall, every version of the app we have used has been an administrative nightmare, and 9.0 seems worse, if anything.

Jobs randomly fail with "difference in file data" (having replaced all tapes and tapedrive). Veritas claims it may be our math coprocessor????

App intermittently cannot access a directory on server and fails job for several days in a row (directory is a BE app directory. No problem with directory apparent. Problem "fixes itself" magically after a couple days.

App hangs server during backup. (which takes almost 10 hours to back up less than 20 GIG.) Spent weeks reallocating RAM/Swap with Exchange and changing server memory usage. Succeeded in limiting problem to once every couple weeks instead of every other night.

9.0 Installer does not install MSDE correctly (some issue with MDAC upgrade?). Took several days working with both Veritas and Microsoft support to even install the app.

We have spent more $$ in troubleshooting this app on 2 different servers than we spent to buy the app.

I will never buyor recommend another Veritas backup product.

 

[rvsharpe]

Our company upgraded from 8.6 to 9.0 to fix some of the same probelems that the original poster mentioned. We have experienced nothing but problems with the 9.0 product and I have sworn off Veritas BE. The Interface is nice but the product itself is very erratic and buggy. I upgraded to revision 4454 in the hopes of eliminating th following problems to no avail....

"Unable to attach to drive" problem randomly occurs even though the account credentials have not changed. When I reset the credentials to the same account that stops working access is granted again...

BE Job engine occasionally quits during the middle of a backup job.

If I reset the BE services which is quite often, I can't access the application via the admin console, I receive the error "The Interface is Unknown" I have to reboot in order to access BE via the console.

CRC and tape i/o errors...We have changed the drive, controller, cable, drivers and numerous other tweaks per veritas support to no avail. MS backup application runs just fine.

The list goes on and on....and Veritas support hasn't been much help at all.

I am running BE on a Windows 2000 Advance server with SP 4.

I would not recommend this application (9.0) to anyone based on my experience with the product.

 

[spec9742]

Well unlike the other posts I have had success with version 9.0. I upgraded from version 8.6. I don't particulary like the changes to the interface and generally find the ui to be slower than the previous version. However all backups have worked fine.

 

[Arkroyal]

I have had no problems whatsoever after upgrading from 8.6 to 9.0 and existing backups (including Exchange) ran fine without any modification. I like the interface which I find intuitive and easy to navigate. "Completed with errors" message, which really annoyed in the past, is now "Completed with exceptions." An improvement!

One complaint: the Alerts icon is so small in status bar at bottom of screen, that it can easily be overlooked.