CommVault?

[sifiguy]

Hey there

Is anyone using Commvault's products? We are considering evaluating them so I was wondering what the word is.

Cheers
Simon

 

[dampo]

Hi there,


We are using Commvault galaxy 4.1 and I have to say it works good for us.

We are using it to backup Netware,MS windows 2000 server ,SQL databases, and Sun Solaris.

Kind regards

Dampo

 

[stewtoo]

We converted from ArcServe to CommVault over the past several months, and are currently running Galaxy 4.1 SP2. It is definitely a superior product to CA ArcServe. We evaluated all of the major vendors in our engineering lab environment, (CA, Veritas, Legato, and CommVault). The other vendors' reps didn't seem to know how to setup their own products properly, and sent out different people each time, so they stepped all over themselves in making changes to their installs. CommVault sent out the same people each time, knew their products, learned our environment, and knew how to answer questions on the spot. Their service and support are much better than anything we saw from the others. We're now backing up 200+ NT/2000 servers with Galaxy, including SQL7, SQL2000, Exchange2000, etc., in addition to some Solaris systems. Their mailbox level backups for Exchange are awesome, and make restores of mail items, calendars, etc. a breeze compared to what we used to have to deal with.

 

[sifiguy]

Thanks for the replies. I'm currently installing a test system. I was thinking we'll have to start a forum for Galaxy, but if it works as well as people are saying there may be no need! How weird would that be, backup software that actually works... Also, everyone I've spoken to comments on how great the support is. Our local data products reseller has organised a Commvault engineer to come and assist our test install at no cost to us!

 

[dd7zt]

Well, I have installed Galaxy 4.1 for different customers. It really works fine. The support you get is really excellent but I've also seen a few problems. Most the time it's to the configuration of the software because it is very extensive (depending on your environment) so be aware to this.

 

[GregBoston]

Hi everyone, Question on Commvault backup and Macintosh files stored on NT and 2000 servers with mac file services installed. Does Commvault backup the resource fork and strange characters that Macs can use?

Greg

 

[jdboston]

Galaxy is the only Microsoft recommended backup solution. Go to microsoft.com and search on Commvault for lots of information. We use 4.1 SP2, and while the software takes a while to get used to, and more time to manage than some software, at least we know we're getting good backups. I've done two bare metal restores with it with no problems.

 

[MostlyNuts]

Here is my 0.02...

"Our local data products reseller has organised a Commvault engineer to come and assist our test install at no cost to us!"
This is because you may get so frustrated doing the install yourself that you may lose confidence in their software. Give it a try first without them helping.

"Galaxy is the only Microsoft recommended backup solution."
My question is then why is MS moving everything to Veritas? They have Veritas in their corporate offices and Legato in their satalite offices- soon to be moved to Veritas in the next few years.
Look for the Microsoft Logo Certification, it' sthe only real way to see how MS feels about other software.

It is pretty though, and I am MostlyNuts!)

 

[jdboston]

>My question is then why is MS moving everything to Veritas?

Can you point me to the source of this information? I can't tell you what Microsoft uses in their corporate offices, but I can tell you they are part owner of CommVault Systems. I can also tell you that Galaxy is far superior to Veritas, particularly in the area of RESTORING Exchange. Individual messages, contacts, etc. can be restored to a mailbox with no interruption to the Exchange server, or to the client.

 

[BostonSteve]

We just bought Galaxy 4.2 and I just came back from training on the product. Definately an Enterprise product. Their version 5 will be out during Q3. After going to training I realized this product has it all over CA and Seagate.

 

[qzq]

BostonSteve, since you got trained on the product, I had a question for you. If I backup to disk using Commvault and then backup that data to tape, how do I go about restoring that data from tape. What I am looking at doing is backing up to disk and then back that disk up to tape. If I need to restore I can restore that data to disk again but how do I get the software to restore from the images on disk ?

 

[szeegers]

Hi,

On my last job we used Galaxy 4.1 Now i'm working with Arcserve 2000
Galaxy is much better than Arcserve. Esspecially in large enviroments.

 

[BostonSteve]

qzq - When you do a restore the system will first look to disk for the info (the spot you originally backed up to). If the info is not there then the system will look to tape. It will know it went to tape by the fact of you doing an aux-copy from disk to tape. I think a better scenario is to do initial full to tape. Do all incrementals to disk. Do synthetic fulls on weekends. Then do tape to tape aux copies of your synthetic fulls.

 

[jdboston]

qzq:

In response to your question regarding backing up to disk, then to tape, it depends on how you set it up in Galaxy, but I am doing something similar, so I'll offer this information. If you back up server1 to disk, such as a NAS device, then you back up that disk to tape, the process is simply reversed for a restore. You would restore the server1's data from tape to the disk you had backed it up to, then from disk back to server1.
BostonSteve has it right when he mentions the aux-copy from disk to tape, and this is one of Galaxy's great features. If you have enough disk space for this scenario, you will be very pleased with the results.

 

[BostonSteve]

Does anyone know a solution to the following problem? I am trying to do an Aux Copy. Right in the middle of the job it goes to a Pending state. The error I get is -

Failed to copy Archive File [1294] of Backup Job [399] with Stream [2] from Copy [Primary] to Copy [Offsite Weekly Copy]: Pipeline setup failure.

I've noticed that I get the Pipeline setup failures quite a bit. I have a call into support but they seem to be very slow getting back.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[xirba]

Steve, Pipeline errors are most often seen with networking issues...fyi