SCARY ARCSERVE 2000 PROBLEM!!! (and a rant and a bit of a moan)

[TJP]

Scary Arcserve Problem and a bit of ranting and a general moan! I don't need a fix to this problem this is just a warning to do a manual file check of your backups, i.e. compare log totals to database totals to actual file totals on the drive.

First the big, scary problem...

1. A very big, scary one. I did a file count on the off-chance as I did not trust Arcserve's verification. There were no errors reported in the backup, full logging and verification i.e. comapre backup to disk, were on, and after I counted the files there were 800 odd missing off a volume with about 5000 files. This was a logical drive containing notes databases. In one folder it missed all files starting a - m and backed up n - z. How scary is that? (thankfully we have the notes agent which captures all the databases, this has saved us a great deal of embarrassment, not to mention our jobs, more than once)

Now the ranting and moaning...

I have been working with Arcserve in it's 2000 incarnation for seven months now, I did not originally install it (should have done a reinstall but I was waiting to rebuild all the servers), so cannot guarantee the integrity of the server build and Arcserve 2000 install. I am sure Arcserve 2000 can and does work perfectly (sometimes, but if the volume of threads in this forum are anything to go by, not very often). But if it happens on one server it could be happening on another. Arcserve 2000 in my experience is one big headache, the support on the web site is as much use as a chocolate teapot, it has more patches than Microsoft's entire product line (ok, slight exaggeration), it's telephone support staff although willing have the technical ability of a banana and half the aforementioned banana's language skills. Please feel free to add to this thread with your own rantings and moans.

END OF RANT.

 

[iowtech]

Are you sure the backup job was created correctly by selecting drives from the root and not as a snapshot?

(Who's this willing CA support person?)

 

[TJP]

The job was the local c$, d$, e$, registry and notes databases. It has been recreated more than once. I did not build the server or install arcserve so I cannot say as to the integrity of the build / install. That is probably where the problem lay. I did not investigate this any further as the server was due to be decommissioned and was replaced by one that I built to my standard. I installed Arcserve and everything backs up fine. However, I find it alarming that an supposedly established, mature, piece of Enterprise software can behave in this way. Arcserve reported that it had backed up the whole of the E$ with no errors. It gave me a file count. The actual file count on that drive was 800 files more. Arcserve backed up all files beginning with N through Z and did not backup A through M in a directory where all the files had the same ACL's. I could have contacted Arcserve support, an experience I can liken to beating oneself about the head repeatedly with a sock covered hammer, (I have not tried this but you get the idea), but spared myself the agony as the server was due to be decommissioned anyway. You can see from the volume of the threads that Arcserve 2000 is prone to a few problems (cough... cough... extreme generosity on my part) and not wishing to be defeatist or bias but give me Backup Exec any day. As for the willing CA support person, willingness is a fine quality but in this instance I would have preferred product knowledge, technical expertise and most of all the ability to comprehend the English language in its spoken format. Apologies for the sarcasm.

 

[iowtech]

Calm down, think of your heart!

Seriously though, not having used it, is Backup Exec alot better? How does it get on with MS Exchange? Can you do brick level etc?

 

[mcse924]

Hey,

I also have come to realize that Arcserve and CA products in general are POS software (Piece Of S*!@). I am 100% positive that there is some software out there called Simple Backup by Joe Programmer (just an example - do not do a search on this) that can blow Arcserve out of the water. CA is the East Coast Microsoft, with worse management. I, like many others, inherited the software from previous admins.

It's hands down the WORST support in the industry, and you are right, they should drop those stupid sounding Long Island accents!! Get professional CA! Train your people, who are not that technically savvy, to at least be able to pronounce English words without a retarded NY dialect. Can you tell that years of CA/Arcserve/Inoculan frustration have left me with an angry mouth?!?

 

[Spaz99]

I would have to agree with you , I myslef have had the unfortunate experience of working with CA products since
Arcserve 4 for DOS which was then ownded by Cheyenne , the moment it went to CA support turned out to be a JOKE , There web site support is pathetic and all I can say is that we have given up on Arcserve and now run SyncSort Backup Express and excellent piece of software with no stupid animated icons, I wish you all the luck in the world getting any CA product to work without any faults