Would you recommend Arcserve? 2

[LissaB]

Hello,


I took over as CIO of a smallish company in November. I work with a consultant who was full time here before I started. I was told that backups were being done in all departments on a regular basis and have now found out that I was given false information.

I need to come up with a backup strategy for the company. It needs to be reliable and automated- other than changing the tape.

We have a Surestore T4i in a Windows NT 4.0 server. Most of our critical data is stored on this server.

I am happy to tell you I ran a full backup last night using Windows NT backup, but I want to give them a better solution. That said, do you recommend Arcserve? Why did you choose it over Backup Exec?

(I have posted close to the same post on the Backup exec forum too- but I wanted to hear from both sides)

Thank you so much for your help.

Lissa

 

[xarfox]

I use Backup Exec and ArcServ and NT 5.0 Backup

NT 5.0 backup is a pain because the scheduler never works right and it doesn't run as a service so I cannot log off the server until the backup is over

Backup Exec is always 100 % accurate with no problems and is very easy to use though I didn't set it up, someone else did

ArcServ was terrible to setup, still doesn't work, and has an array of strange errors. It seems very powerful and fast but even the GUI is overloaded and bulky, not to mention slow remotely. I can't say I would spend the $$$ on this, and it is alot of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$

I did not choose any of these - it is what I was forced to use, I would investigate Backup Exec personally for future use with open file agents to capture everything.

Hope that helps

 

[ddaily]

If you are on a small network and only backing up small amounts of data, then Arcserve may work just fine. I am doing full backups every night on one terra byte of data and since I have moved over to a tape library from a single drive setup, it has never worked right. Always scsi errors. I have replace everything at least once and most stuff 2 or 3 times and still get the same errors after even reinstalling Arcserve several times on a clean hard drive. The problem is that no one at CA can ever get me the fix. So I sit here in limbo.

 

[LissaB]

I really appreciate the tips. I used Arcserve at my last job and I loved it after getting used to it, but it does take some getting used to. I didn't know if using it in an NT environment was a good idea or not. All we had at the last place was Novell.

I'm still trying to figure out what to purchase. Arcserve support is okay isn't it? I know with Backup Exec some have said support is what costs you. That is all important to me.

Thanks again for all of your feedback!

Lissa

 

[ARCserveGuru]

I would choose ARCserve over backup exec any day. Basically, if you know how ARCserve works, then you will not have a problem, and if you do, there will be a fix released to solve it. There is e-news which emails you on the latest updates for your products, and support (in most countries) is free.

Clearly if you don't have your system running properly, such as SCSI conflicts and errors, it will have nothing to do with arcserve, which is why it puzzles me that the person above did a re-install when the problem is clearly with his strategem and hardware.

If you are already familiar with ARCserve, then by all means why not go for it? If you need help setting things up then we'll help you out in this forum. hehee you could always just get CA to design a backup strategy for you, implement and fully automate everything. It'll cost you some pennies though

conclude, if you understand arcserve, then it'll treat you right, and if you use logic to solve problems, then you'll be ok. Free support too, in some places

Happy choosing.

guru

 

[montanablue2]

No offense, ArcserveGuru, but it sounds like you work for CA.... I personally agree with the fellow above. I've worked with both Backup Exec and Arcserve and found Backup Exec to be a lot less painful to work with. Arcserve I think works well if you place it in a homogenous network environment (preferably Novell) where it does not have to deal with more than a terabyte of data or deal with large tape libraries. It is easy to run Arcserve in a single server environment but once you go beyond that, constant monitoring is a necessity. Plus, CA's tech support is terrible (their first-level support people in India barely speak English). I have had to sign a special support contract with CA just so I can have immediate access to their somewhat competent second-level techs...

 

[ddaily]

Thanks "Montanablue2", glad to see there is someone there to exonerate me. You are absolutely right! Ever since I started approaching 700 gigs of data a night and switched over to a tape library, I started having to babysit the backups every night. Before that, I changed the tapes everyday and forgot about it and went home and relaxed. Now it is a constant monitoring until I go to bed! We may have found a edge against these problems and are testing now. We will see if I can go back to relaxing nights again. I never did learn to speak Pakastanie. This is America.

 

[ARCserveGuru]

No offense taken montana blu, but it sounds like you work for veritas hehehe. It's just that backup exec will always be a lesser product. It is such a simple product. That is why there are situations where if you swap out arcserve with backup exec, exec will work like a charm. Arcserve is more finnaccy, but it's only because when you get it humming it kicks butt and has so much more to offer. It can do so much, and now it can backup to disk too.

Look, I agree that if your backing up small, and want to go home and forget about the backups, then backup exec may be for you. but if you want to RAID drives, backup NAS devices and database applications etc... I could go on.

I agree when it gets into a heterogenous environment it starts to get a little buggy, networks have to be 100% and even then you may have a little trouble, I guess that is why they brought out Brightstor EB?

also, about their tech support, were not really addressing that in the string. As I have said previously though, the tech support I have spoken to have very good english, but I admit it is australian/pacific support I call. Not american.

Well, to each his own. I will always prefer ARCserve over backup exec, but is it a case of comparing apples to pears?


we all have our opinions based on our experiences with the product. My experiences with arcserve are a lot more pleasant than my experiences with Backup Exec, Net Backup. Legato and Tivoli are absolute nightmares to restore too , etc.....


Happy backing up, whichever way you go.

guru

 

[8arcserve]

"Arcserve I think works well if you place it in a homogenous network environment (preferably Novell)"
montanablue2
I wish... Arcserve is a complete pain, probally the worst piece of software I've had the mis-fortune to use, even in a homogenous network enviroment i.e. Novell.
You can get it to work ,but its not straight out of the box . Be prepared to troll throught the manuals and god help you if you have to use CA's tech support.

 

[APierce1]

My experience with ArcServe has been abyssmal. It's taken two dozen calls to CA tech support (in India) and I still can't get reliable backups of our Exchange server. It'll work great for a day or a week, then BOOM, mucho errors (as many as 7 per second, creating a log file that was a half gig when I finally got it to stop by KILLing the process). I've escalated my case up to the manager level, but I'm still not getting anywhere.

As of last December 1, CA is now charging for all support, on a per error message basis. Though, I must say, I've only paid for one support incident.

I previously used Backup Exec in a Novell environment and NEVER had any problems like this. Oh, and the support technician assigned to my issue doesn't come in until noon EST (again, they're all in India).

Just my two cents - your mileage may vary.

Best regards,
Alan Pierce
Ithaca, NY

 

[rcpis]

I've had no luck with their support. The only tech's that I've gotten have had broken English, at best, and still are unable to correct problems. ARCServe was in place when I was hired so I've been forced to deal with problems from the past. I think their support is terrible!

 

[iandrewmartin]

I have had the devils own time making ARCServe work correctly. First the software is very poorly documented, unless you want to make a career move to being a help file reader.

Having said that however, once I did get it to run, everything went like a charm.

Until the log file, ate my entire disk space. Then I had to rebuild my backup server, (we use it for nothing else) from the ground up.

Twice. Then I fugured out how to get around this. I have a FAQ posted for this too. Since then we have had no major problems. Again however, there are lots of little ones.

I have not upgraded the software from SP1 out of the box and from reading what has been written I am glad I did not.

Considered it just before Xmas last year but held off.

I have never used tech support, but considering the lack-lustre support website, the prospect does not give me much hope.

This was a must use gotta get going thing and I have made it go. I am not happy with it, it ain't pretty but it lurches along without any major hiccups on Dell Powervault with seven DLT drives. We back up across several routers, and while slow, it goes.

For your small network, I would recommend using Windows Scripting Host, some vbscripts and a little brainstorming to get the stuff you need backed up.

I volunteer for a small city library in central texas, and this is what they have. The librarian loves it as does their senior computer volunteer. And it works.

My two pence worth.

Andrew

 

[dkediger]

I've had zero problems with the ArcServe software itself in a pure Novell evnironment to a mixed Novell/NT to a pure Win2k environment using the Exchange client. The only glitch I've ever had was solved with an LTO drive firmware upgrade.

Can't comment on BE, as I've never used it, but ArcServe has always treated me/my network right - even to the point of being able to read my old 12/24DAT tapes from Novell/ArcServeIT into my current Win2k/ArcServe 7 setup.

 

[lpphiggp]

My experience with ArcServe has been nothing but pain and frustration.
My opinion, after months and months of struggling with it, is that it is not at all acceptable.
Keep away from it if you value your sanity and your job.
At work we currently have no less than 3 different problems with it at different sites, one will not see the 25 user workgroup license (that is valid!), another keeps claiming host adapter SCSI errors even though the host apdapter was changed out and the CD that also runs off of it works fine.
Mostly, we got the service connection broken error, and no amount of updated CLIBs for Netware, or host file editing did squat. The nwagent seems to have it working for now, but that nlm has abended one of our critical servers twice now in the last 2 weeks.
If I had my way, CAI would be put out of business; perhaps a class action lawsuit would be the ticket to force them out of business, or at least make them start putting a shred of thought into their "product". The interface change between version 6 and 7 was a major mistake as well.

We tried an eval edition of backup exec, and though it took some getting used to, being a different product, I had none of the problems I had with CrackServe.. er.. ArcServe.
Not that I'm preaching for Veritas either, but at least it works.