we have an L20, what backup software is recommeded

[bookouri]

We have an L20 and do file system and Oracle RMAN backups. We've been using Netbackup and we are fed up with it. We used Arcserve before going to Netbackup and we have not been happy with Netbackup at all. Could anyone suggest any other backup software we might take a look at?

thanks for any suggestions.

 

[comtec17]

Look at using BakBone NetVault. You will get a 45 day free trial just by downloading it from their site.

http://www.bakbone.com

 

[bookouri]

thanks, Ill take a look at that.

 

[johnny99]

It's little funny for me to read that you don't like Netbackup, especialy because I use it daily and I am very happy with it.

What kind of problem do your have with Netbackup?

Netbackup normaly supports StorageTek harware very well and the same is true about Oracle.

What version are you running and on what operating system?

/johnny

 

[bookouri]

We are running 4.5 on Windows 2000 server. We've had the Robot and Tape Drive worked on several times but Netbackup frequently "locks up" and the the drive has to be manually "upped". We have to backup Oracle databases too, and unlike ArcServe used to do, there is no real hotbackup for Oracle, Netbackup depends on RMAN, which we didnt want to use. We've tried unsuccessfully to use the Netbackup wizard to create a working RMAN script, but we still havnt made any progress so I still back up the Oracle databases to disk and then backup the files to tape.

 

[johnny99]

What feature pack or maintenance pack are you using?

At the site where I work we don't have Oracle, but what people tell me about Netbackup and backup of Oracle the Oracle client has everything including hotbackup.

We mostly use SQL-server as our database. SQL-server should be a little more easy to hadle because it doesn't have all the features Oracle has, but planning database backup/restore/recovery is not a simple thing and you need a lot of DBA skills to make that work optimal, regardless of the database and the backup software.

Before you "dump" your Netbackup I would contact a Netbackup consultant to get it to work. I would expect that since you use so small a library that your installation is not too complex, so it would normaly take a consultant a few hours to fix it.

Remember that Netbackup is the leading backupsoftware outside the mainframe world. I have read about installations that have more then 3.000 clients in one Netbackup complex.

I have seen lockups on our master server under Windows 2000 server, but that has been a problem in Windows not Netbackup.

Netbackup will normaly down a tapedrive if it has errors. This is a great feature except in an installation with one tapedrive.

What tapedrives are you using? Especialy DLT can be unstable

If you have a maintenance contract upgrade to FeaturePack 5 and see if it will solve some of your problems.

To the best I know Netbackup is the greatest backup product money can buy (if you don't have to include an z/OS mainframe into the complex)

Have you tried to get help in the Netbackup Forum?

You say you are running version 4.5. Is it the datacenter version?

/johnny

 

[bookouri]

yes, we have the datacenter version, and we are using DLT, and we did find out (too late) that we shouldnt be using only one tape drive...Ill have to check out that feature pack and see if that helps any of our problems...

thanks again for the comments