BackupExec vs. ArcServe

[monkeylizard]

I currently run ArcServe 6.61 Advanced Ed. (SP2a) and it's time to upgrade to ArcServe2000 or replace it with BackupExec.

I want to hear from some advanced admins who know BackupExec. I'd like to hear a structured, informative evaluation from your perspectives on the product. Please don't tell me that BackupExec is junk or a savior unless you give some examples of why you feel that way.

Please evaluate the following areas:
Cost Is it worth the $$$?
Installation Easy or difficult? What about registration?
Configuration Do the Agents work well? Are jobs easy to setup? What about Media Rotation and Tape Libraries?
Administration Is it reliable? Do the jobs run like they should? What about the database?
Recovery How quickly do files restore? How well does the Disaster Recovery Agent work?
Enterprise From an Enterprise scale, do the backups/restores allow you to store/retreive data in a logical way? Can you always find what you need from when you need it, right when you need it in the ways that you need it?
MS SQL How about the SQL Agent? Is it easy to use? Can you backup/restore at the Table level or just the Database level? ArcServe6.61 only allows a restore at the Database level. I've needed table on more than one occasion.
Overall On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being 'It's so bad I stopped using it and now backup to diskettes again' and 10 being 'What a miraculous product! I no longer worry about backups and it works 365 days out of the year no matter what I tell it to do!'

Thanks in advance for any input.

Monkeylizard
-Isaiah 35-

 

[Guest_imported]

I belive you can download and try it and decide for yourself.
It is definetly nowhere near 10. Ive never used Arc Server but we use CA products and find most of them very inferior.

SQL only restores databases, no Tables.

Once you figure out the logic of the product it works OK. I still get frustrated.

 

[2ffat]

Here's my two cents worth:

Cost Is it worth the $$$? Just from the standpoint of having a reliable backup, yes. From all the frustrations, no. IMHO, the older versions of BE were actually better than some of the newer versions.

Installation If everything goes well, installation is OK. If something goes wrong, though, look out! We have had much better response from the previous owners of BE than from Veritas (they insisted on charging us even though BE was still under warranty). Registration went OK for us.

Configuration Agents seem to be easy to install and set up as are our backup jobs. I set up a nightly backup job then forget about it. It usually runs until there is a bad tape then we have problems getting things going again. Sometimes the job refuses to stop until you reboot.
[tab]I also do a weekly backup of workstations. I just select the workstations to backup from a dropdown list and let it go. It may be a little confusing the first few times you use it since it may look different from other backup programs.

Administration It seems to be fairly reliable. The weak link here is the tapes but BE can't do anything about that.

Recovery To me, this is probably the worst part of BE. Restoring files goes fast but sometimes, for no apparent reason, a large file may not be fulled restored. Veritas knows about this but has not given us a satisfactory answer. Sometimes restoring files to a workstation will drop the connection and the restoration won't complete, other times there are no problems.

Enterprise We have not had a problem with this. We can find the tape/time/file we need without any problems.

Overall I would give it a 6. Better than some but not so good as others. When BE was owned by Arcadia, I would have given it a 9 or 10. When it was owned by Seagate, a 7 -8. Now, just a 6.

[tab]We will be getting some new servers soon and I would also like to find a viable alternative to BE. Coming from a Unix background, I've used some excellent backup software. I would say I've been spoiled by them but our older versions of BE did much better than our current versions (8.x). The snobbishness of Veritas hasn't helped either. James P. Cottingham

I am the Unknown lead by the Unknowing.
I have done so much with so little
for so long that I am now qualified
to do anything with nothing.

 

[dellboy]

You can trial BE for free for 60 days. I am at the moment after trying to get Arcserve running on Exchange. Go visit the website and give them a call.

On my 2 days experience I have installed and got some form of backups running, more than I ever realistically achieved with Arcserve. The support is ok, they actually resolved my problem of not being able to get the disk to spin up, corrupt profile, so all in all I am fairly happy, other than there knowledge base being absolutley useless I am fairly impressed upto now.

I've only done the exchange side of things upto now but it has backed up and restored. I must say it is a completely different 'package' to Arcserve and personally I feel easier to administer and understand whats going on. Essentially I would advise testing the product for free

Cheers
Guy

 

[Sparkler]

MonkeyLizard,
I'd like to thank you for helping me in the past with my Arcserve problems, the majority of which I was able to overcome, given that the Arcserve Support was woefully inadequate.
I "inherited" Arcserve last year when I started a new job, but I'd like to think I gave it a fair old trial, battling with it for 10 months (V6.61). I used Backup Exec before in my previous job (V7.3 build 2575) and this worked very sweetly with HP 15-slot Autoloaders, a kind of "set and forget" including the cleaning!
We have now performed a "competitive upgrade" to Backup Exec v8.6, having depended upon the full 60 days of the trial of v8.5 to ensure the Business was effectively supported. We had no confidence in the ability to recover from any form of disaster when using Arcserve - either total site or even single server. True, Backup Exec was the product I was more familiar with, but my confidence has now been restored (forgive the pun!)

So, go with guest43, 2ffat, dellboy and me and get yourself the 60-day full blown eval and make up your own mind. One caveat though - we had the v8.5 eval and installed a number of agents. When we went v8.6 for full product, the agents on all destination servers had to be upgraded as they wouldn't work - surely they could have provided some backward compatability into the agents? Apart from that, I'm happy.

Cost Is it worth the $$$? Didn't get involved in costing!
Installation Easy or difficult? Easy.
What about registration? Also easy - plumb in the serial no.s at the start and all's well.
Configuration Do the Agents work well? Yes - better data t/x rate.
Are jobs easy to setup? Yes, as long as you set up the hardware right in the first place, you can then bind the jobs to specific drives. Also, an ad-hoc job is easy to create using an existing job as a mask.
What about Media Rotation and Tape Libraries? Used to use media rotation with the tape libraries (ver7.3 build 2575) and it worked very well.
Administration Is it reliable? Yes.
Do the jobs run like they should? Most of the time, although some don't start if a number of alerts are outstanding (??)
What about the database? Seems to be consistent - Inventory/Catalog works well though.
Recovery How quickly do files restore? On a par with Arcserve, but more reliable.
How well does the Disaster Recovery Agent work? Unknown.
Enterprise From an Enterprise scale, do the backups/restores allow you to store/retreive data in a logical way? Um, you can group like servers for backup, e.g. SQL on one backup, Exchange on another, Files on others etc. I'd like to see a priority method of backing up, but the backup priority is determined by NetBIOS name. I don't feel I should have to create a number of different jobs which queue up when I could logically group like servers and place a priority on them, irrespective of the alphabetic NetBIOS naming.
Can you always find what you need from when you need it, right when you need it in the ways that you need it? Should be able to as long as the backup worked for that day.
MS SQL How about the SQL Agent? Is it easy to use? Seems to do the necessary at the moment.
Can you backup/restore at the Table level or just the Database level? Just the database level which is a bit of a bummer for me as a SQL admin. ArcServe6.61 only allows a restore at the Database level. I've needed table on more than one occasion too.
Overall On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being 'It's so bad I stopped using it and now backup to diskettes again' and 10 being 'What a miraculous product! I no longer worry about backups and it works 365 days out of the year no matter what I tell it to do!' I'd rate it at an 8. It's got foibles like all backup products will have, but I'm far happier with this than with ArcServe.

Sorry to go on. Cure for insomnia!
Sparkler.