Thoughts on Backup Solutions?

[ITJohn3]

To put it bluntly... I'm sick of Backup Exec and looking for an alternative and its up for renewel soon.

We are a microsoft shop for the most part running exchange and sql servers but we do have a HP-UX box and we also run some esx servers. Currently we only backup our windows machines using BE. Backing up filesystems is not the issue. Its backing up/restoring exchange/sql that I get annoyed. It works for the most part but out of no where sometimes the backups will just hang giving no reason why.

Just wondering if anyone out there can share some knowledge on what they use or some other alternatives like ArcServ.

John Sorensen
Network/Systems Admin

http://it-john.com

 

[mrdenny]

I've worked with CommVault's backup product and had good success with it.

Denny
MVP
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000)
MCTS (SQL 2005 / SQL 2005 BI / SQL 2008 DBA / SQL 2008 DBD / SQL 2008 BI / MWSS 3.0: Configuration / MOSS 2007: Configuration)
MCITP (SQL 2005 DBA / SQL 2008 DBA / SQL 2005 DBD / SQL 2008 DBD / SQL 2005 BI / SQL 2008 BI)

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[monkeylizard]

I've managed an ArcServ setup in the past and it's what my current company uses. It's like most others. All the hard work is in getting the initial setup right. After that it's just a matter of supplying fresh tapes.

I've used it for MS SQL, but never for HP-UX or Exchange. It works reasonably well on SQL, but I found the simplest way to do it was to skip the ArcServ SQL Agent and just have SQL Server Agent make a backup of the DBs and then have ArcServ pick up the *.BAK files.

Monkeylizard
Sometimes just a few hours of trial and error debugging can save minutes of reading manuals.

 

[iolair]

I've used ArcServe and Backup Exec. I found it simpler to just schedule a file copy. I know, it's not elaborate, but it works.

Iolair MacWalter
Network Engineer