systems backup application needed

[smoke187]

Hi all

I am busy looking for a new backup solution for my company. We currently have Veritas backup exec managing all our backups to tape drives. and while Veritas is very user friendly and doing the job right, I am looking for a new solution because my current version does not support Server 2008. I am looking for a similar application that can backup my servers and user desktop PC's as well, to either my tape library and at a later stage I will be making use of NAS drives at each of our DC's.

I have also noticed that symantec offer backup software with their endpoint licensing, but I would like to expand my options with other packages. for desktop PC's we also use Cobian backup on some of the PC's, which works quite nice but the compression is not that good.

Also taking note that all servers and tape libraries are Dell hardware and majority Dell desktops and Laptops.

 

[millennia]

Considering you're calling it veritas BE i'd take a stab and say you have a ridiculously old version. Veritas sold it to Symantec years ago. The newer versions (12 upwards) work with 2008.

 

[smoke187]

well it is quite old, because I have version 9.1 and up until now it has been working perfectly for me, so we never really found the need to update the package. I have a copy of the symantec version which was supplied with my volume licensing package, but was thinking of giving another package a try, because change is sometimes good and well, it would give me more exposure to different options and environments, because I will also be experimenting with some desktop visualization packages as well.

 

[midkemia]

dump the backup exec and tape drives!

get a NAS with at least 4 hard drives in RAID 6 and one hotswap.

get something like acronis to perform the backups, as eventually you will be able to use acronis to backup to the cloud.

acronis is almost alot cheaper than BE... as most clients that look to update there BE license end up on another backup software.

You should ideally backup to your NAS for immediate restores, and you should backup to somewhere in the cloud, for a situation where there is a complete loss. eg. fire or theft.

 

[JamesGeek]

Handy Backup can do it well. I have used several backup programs for years, and I recommend Handy Backup, it's easy and reliable backup solution.
Hope it will work for you too.

 

[Elvis007]

If the company have the money rather stick with back-up Exec, get the 2010 version.

We upgraded 6 months ago, you should also qualify for a discount because you have version 9.1

 

[smoke187]

If the company have the money rather stick with back-up Exec, get the 2010 version.

We upgraded 6 months ago, you should also qualify for a discount because you have version 9.1

thanks for the heads up, I've got a meeting with our Symantec guys next week to upgrade our Symantec AV console, so I'm getting them to bring along some documentation, because from what I found out is that with our current AV license we got a backup client license included for our desktops but we need to purchase a server application license so hopefully all is a simple process. This year we spent 70k on AV licensing

 

[The_Unbeliever]

dump the backup exec and tape drives!

get a NAS with at least 4 hard drives in RAID 6 and one hotswap.

get something like acronis to perform the backups, as eventually you will be able to use acronis to backup to the cloud.

acronis is almost alot cheaper than BE... as most clients that look to update there BE license end up on another backup software.

You should ideally backup to your NAS for immediate restores, and you should backup to somewhere in the cloud, for a situation where there is a complete loss. eg. fire or theft.

We do the same.

A simple non-raid server with enough disk space to handle all the files which get synchronized on a regular basis to it with a tape streamer.

Saved the day on more than one occasion when users deleted a lot of files - was quicker getting the files back from this server than from tape.

But, to be more secure, use a server with a RAID rather - if properly configured, you can use this as a backup server should the master server fail for whichever reason.

And backup to the cloud is a good option - as long as it's secure and data can be retrieved without any hassles.