Multiple Brightstore Arcserve 9 woes (Netware)

[domburi]

I have been having a nightmare experience with Arcserve 9 and would like people's input...

I installed it originally as an upgrade to 7 on one of my Groupwise Servers so that I could back up Groupwise 6. Right away, I needed to restore something and got an E1062 (Invalid Session Signature). After dealing with Arcserve support for 3 weeks (!), I had installed a second copy on another server and was getting the same error. They gave me a patch and told me that my backups were unrecoverable.

While I was ending that episode, I encountered a problem with the Arcserve Manager. I was viewing the Job Status for a certain server. That server was listed as the active server and it was showing its jobs correctly. I wanted to cancel its active job. I cancelled it and it actually cancelled it on my second Arcserve server. I contacted CA support with the PROOF that this had happened - I was able to duplicate it and get screen shots. They were stumped. Their solution was to delete all jobs, delete the database, mess with the bti.cfg, reboot the servers. It worked, but why did this happen in the first place???

Next up, I came in one morning a few days later and got LOGIN FAILED on all my sessions except the local session. I contacted Arcserve support again and they said that when you modify a job sometimes it doesn't 'save' it correctly!!! They said to delete the job rebuild it and try it again. Of course it worked but now every time I want to modify a job I have to delete it and rebuild it or face a failed backup in the morning.

Just recently my backup jobs started taking 28 hours to complete!!! All of a sudden one of my servers is backing up at a rate of 800k per minute. Obviously this takes hours to complete. I am still in communication with support about this one... *sigh*

And finally, although everything else seemed fine and I did some test restores (Restore by Session) something else happened. I did a merge of a old tape trying to restore a folder. After the merge when I went to "Restore by Session", none of the Sessions opened up to show detail files. They were all gone!! This happens ALL the time. CA's solution is to delete the database and jobs, reboot the server, and start over. But then it just happens again! This was a major problem in 7 as well.

Arcserve 9 has been a nightmare for me. If you have any suggestions for me I would love to hear them. Otherwise, consider this a warning...

Thanks.

 

[LoYBoY]

Hi Domburi,

I am a fellow ArcServe for Netware sufferer. I am currently in the process of testing v9 with a possible view to upgrade.

Could you please advise me of the upgrade options ie is there an upgrade option or do you have to purchase the full arcserve v9 product? I have looked on CA site bur could not see any details regarding this. Can you advise of your upgrade method.

Thanks in advance.

Lb

See previuos post at: thread478-570687

 

[domburi]

Lb,

There is an upgrade option for Arcserve 7 however they've changed the license scheme to make it a bit more confusing (and more profitable, I assume).

There is no more Enterprise, Single server, etc. You only buy Arcserve and then you buy 'agent licenses' for each server you wish to back up in addition to the local server.

If you own Enterprise v7 already then when you upgrade it automatically knows what servers you were backing up and gives you that many licenses?? I never figured it out for sure.

The really bizarre thing is that it costs the SAME to upgrade Enterprise and Single Server licenses. I don't know why. I paid $518 for an upgrade (for each of my single and enterprise servers) but your mileage may vary since I got Academic Pricing... it included 2 years of Maintainance/Support - WELL worth it, as you probably know.

You have to call to confirm all this, its useless to try and figure it out from their website.