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Need an expert - 125 servers to monitor 3

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ky123

IS-IT--Management
Feb 4, 2002
9
US
I am brand new to a situation with 125 servers using BE9 on Win2000 servers. No monitoring of the backups is being done currently - I need a good policy and setup to make sure the backups are working every night.

Is there a good way to monitor that number of servers centrally?

Options I know of:
1)Email notifications. This would work sort of. Problems I see: a) to track if a server did not send notification would take checking all server emails off a list every day to make sure they all reported; b) can't rely on the summary success/fail because it only lists if the processes started -- have to read each entire job report to for files skipping and verify problems -- that is a lot of email attachments to read; c) our guys who run the email servers are prone to take down the internal SMTP server from time to time, I would have to run my own SMTP server for 100% reliability (which for various reasons I don't want to do).

2)Rely on local staff to check and report problems. This is has drawback that hard/impossible to know if the checking is actually happening.

More info:
The servers are geographically dispersed, local staff switches the tapes, each server has it's own BE9 and tape drive, all sites connected to central with DSL with 128 upload.

My goals:
Get reporting to make sure: a) jobs are running nightly b) tape drives are functional c) all significant errors get followed up on.
 
Can you explain: Do you have 125 media servers?
IF you have 125 Media Server then I first would try ExecView. Install it on a workstation or a test box first.
This allows a Java based first glance at the status of the servers.

The other option is to get the ADMIN PLUS pack Option. This has more reports and allows you to submit jobs, etc from one central location.
 
You asked:
>>Can you explain: Do you have 125 media servers?

Yes we do have 125 media servers. At least I think that we do - I have been thrown into something that I know little about.

We have 125 servers with tape drives installed -- I think that by definition means each server is a media server.

Okay, I looked into ExecView and Admin Plus Option.

I can find Admin Plus available, $200 for retail version and less for licensing. Would I just need one license OR will I need a license for every media server???

I find reference to the ExecView console as a seperate product, but I have looked all over the place and I can not find ExecView for sale. Is this correct: the ExecView 'reporting' module comes with Backup Exec 9 AND the 'database' and 'viewing' part of ExecView are purchased seperately????
 
Execview is free. It is a second CD with the media kit or can be downloaded from Veritas.

It consists of 3 modules.

EIS - Execview Information Server - This can be pretty much any server or workstation running NT, XP or 2000/3. The install is more specific. This runs the database and monitoring.

ECM - Execview Communication Module - installed and running on any Backup Exec Media server.

Execview console - allows you to view and monitor all servers running the ECM.

 
Another thing that all servers must be at the same version. All must be running 9.0, etc.

With 125 media servers quite and investment...
 
Thanks for your help.

1) Can the ECM be push installed???
I found a reference implying it can be pushed out, but I can not find any instructions or way to push it out.

2) Any reason not to run the EIS and the Execview console on the same computer?
 
ky123

ECm can be pushed out - you can specify this during the install - also you can install ECM as part of Backup Exec installation.

No reason why EIS and execview console can't be on the same computer - the Execview console is accessed via a webpage - so it can be any computer you want.
 
If I had 125 servers I would migrate away from BE.
In a shop with 125 servers a product like NetBackup would make your daily life a lot more easy. And it also has a lot more features in performance, recovery, maintenance, monitoring, backup and security.
The day we hit 25 servers we had to give up on BE.

/johnny
 
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