Brightstor 11 - any good reasons to upgrade?

[mcse924]

I have been using Arcserve 9 for a little over a year. The upgrade from Arcserve 2000 to BAB v9 was a great improvement, especially with the Raima database and overall backup speeds.

I don't like to messing with something that is not broken. So I'm looking for feedback on v11, since I qualify for the free upgrade.

So can I hear from BAB v11 users out there? Anything especially great about v11? Anything not so great?

All feedback is much appreciated!!!

Carpe diem, procrastination is the thief of time...

 

[davidmichel]

I like it but and it an improvement over 9 but if your running ok with 9 stay with it. There are a few big improvements but in specific areas. For instance the new enhanced Exchange DB Agent is nice and speeds things up a lot with the Bricks Level backup. The 11.1 DR is also a big improvement but again unless one of these specific things is important to you stay on 9.

I'd say logon to esupport.ca.com (if not already registration is required) then go to the 11.0 product page and check out the compatibility matrix. It lists all the features and so would be a good place to start.

 

[DebiJo]

Since V11 doesn't support NT, we are forced to stay with V9. It'll be a year or more before all my NT servers are gone.

Debi

 

[Dito74]

I upgraded from 2000 to BAB11 (Windows 2000 Server) but since that day I had a lot of problems, some of them got fixed because I had to re-create the job and re-add the machines (I guess there was an incompatibility with the old format of the job). Now I get a bunch of TCP errors (which I still can't fix), found some answer that said to upgrade the Network Cards drivers (That didn't help!). I have 3 different BAB servers and these I just mentioned were the non-important problems, I have the worse ones in our Production environment, when the backup prompts you for a blank tape (who knows why? they are in the scratch set!!!) even after you format (tried 3 times) or erase a tape (tied several times aw well).... at the end the job doesn't pick up the tapes, even tried to enter new ones... didn't fix it.

My suggestion: wait until there is one Service Pack at least for this version. We upgraded too soon!!!!

 

[davidmichel]

Dito74 did you upgrade the Client Agents also?
There is a registry setting to increase the tcp timeout that might take care of it.

 

[Dito74]

I did upgraded the agents and changed the registry, it turned out I needed to upgrade the TEAMING software for the DELL server I used. It's working better now, no more TCP errors, the only problem I have is the LINUX Agent (version 9, is there a version 11 for it?), it doesn't install on FEDORA. Anyone knows anything about it?

 

[mcse924]

DavidMichel, you mentioned an improvement in the Exchange agent. We are a Notes shop, is the assumption correct that the Notes agent is improved as well??

Carpe diem, procrastination is the thief of time...

 

[davidmichel]

You got me there, I really don't know. I have not done anything with Notes in more years than I can remember.

So lets take a quick look online.
Compatibility Matrix shows this:
Backup Agent for Lotus/Domino
Lotus Domino Server 5.0 through 6.0 on Windows NT 4.0 SP6a
Lotus Domino Server 5.0.5 through 6.0, 6.5 on Windows 2000 & 2003

From the Manual:
The agent provides the following benefits:
Flexible backup capabilities of an ARCserve server to create and manage backups.
Full backup jobs on your Lotus Domino databases.
Incremental and differential backup of your Lotus Domino databases.
Flexible scheduling capabilities. For example, you can submit a job for a date you specify and select a repeat method, or you can select a rotation scheme (a preset weekly backup strategy consisting of full backup jobs).

However I have no idea if any of this is new, but thats all I have time for.

 

[wayneta]

A problem I had with BAB v9 was that caloggerd would periodically die. When that happened, both the Activity Log and the job logs would always be blank. That is, when you clicked on the respective tabs, the window would always be blank. Not a drop-dead problem, but always a nuisance. This has been resolved in BAB r11.

-Wayne

 

[rotech22]

Wayneta - I'm using r11 and am still having problems with the logs going blank....
Just FYI