New support for Windows 2008 R2
I’m at to TechED in Berlin … great party for the fall of the Berlin Wall 2009 (shameful timing) – once again Microsoft mess up my weekend. Windows Server 2008 R2 is pretty bold and it will have a significant impact on the market. Piles of guys I have spoken to are interested in the new capabilities.
There are some significant features in the R2 operating system that can help to boost productivity and help administrators gain more management control. It will be of specific interest to companies that have an extensive investment, or plans a complex deployment, of Hyper-V-based virtualisation; any company that has vast swaths of Windows servers in data centres where space, power or both are becoming tight; as well as any company that is planning to deploy Windows 7 on a wide scale in the near future.
In terms of support for R2 BE is already there with Backup Exec 12.5 for Windows Servers revision 2213 Hotfix 331998. This hot-fix contains recommended fixes for Backup Exec for Windows Servers version 12.5 revision 2213. New support for Windows 2008 R2 (RAWS – Remote Agent Support Only) and a Agent for VMware Virtual Infrastructure fix (AVVI).
Affected versions
- Backup Exec 12.5 revision 2213 32bit Media Servers
- Backup Exec 12.5 revision 2213 x64bit Media Servers
Prerequisites
Before installing this hotfix, Backup Exec for Windows 12.5 Service Pack 2 must be installed. Service Pack 2 can be obtained here: http://library.veritas.com/docs/334937. Administrative privileges are required to install this hotfix.
Post requisites
A full backup is recommended after installing this hotfix. Backup Exec Remote Agents must be updated
Download links
- Backup Exec 12.5 or Windows Servers revision 2213 Hotfix 327135 – 32 bit download: http://support.veritas.com/docs/334937
- Backup Exec 12.5 for Windows Servers revision 2213 Hotfix 327135 – 64 bit download: http://support.veritas.com/docs/334938
Issue(s) resolved
After applying Backup Exec 12.5 Hotfix 328462, an Agent for VMWare Virtual Infrastructure (AVVI) backup job with the “Granular Recovery Technology” (GRT) option enabled, completes with the exception “Failed to mount one or more virtual disk images” (For more details please refer to this document: http://support.veritas.com/docs/331927)
Installation Guide – The installation guide here contains general information for installing Backup Exec product updates as well as special instructions for configurations including CPS, Remote Agents for Windows Servers, Remote Agent for Linux/Unix/Macintosh Server (RALUS/RAMS), Clustered Backup Exec, Shared Storage (SSO) installations, Central Admin Servers (CASO) installations, and SAP/R3 Oracle Agents. http://support.veritas.com/docs/300795
Thinking of Cutting Backup Budgets – Think Again!
I saw an analyst report the other day that predicts that in spite of the economic downturn companies, large and small will be spending the same, or even increased, amounts on backup and recovery in fiscal year 2010.
Huh?
To make matters more “huh-like”, this study found that the adoption of disk based technologies is accelerating. Actually, when you think about it this makes sense – disk based backup improves recovery capabilities, backs up virtual environments more effectively and eliminates or reduces the physical requirement (and security hazard) for tape transport.
Actually, it’s making more sense the more you think about it. Older backup solutions or older hardware is less effective, more administratively heavy, time consuming, costing money and effort; new hardware technology on the other hand is more efficient and with new software there is more opportunity to automate more. The automation of IT processes can improve overall IT performance as well as specifically storage, server, and application performance. It also gives IT a fighting chance of managing this unruly thing we call IT saving time, effort and money by better staff productivity, better utilisation rates of servers and storage, better efficiency and understanding of all the assets in the IT environment.
So, we all need to be focused on solving the fundamental challenges of backup: improving recovery objectives, improving success rates, and backing up virtual servers (by the way, if you’ve not sussed this out yet server virtualisation will have a significant impact on backup and data protection strategies in the next year). Backup Exec provides automated backup and recovery that easily integrates into your existing environment. BE’s Agents and Options enhance and extend platform and feature support for BE Environments.
The BE 12.5 Media Server and Agent of Windows Systems licenses include Advanced Open File Option (AOFO) and Intelligent Disaster Recovery Option (IDRO). Advanced Open File Option (AOFO) and Intelligent Disaster Recovery Option (IDRO) are included with each core Backup Exec 12.5 license and with each Agent for Windows Systems providing complete out-of-the-box data protection. Comprehensive Data Protection for VMware Infrastructures and Microsoft Hyper-V Servers provide fast, efficient data protection from a single console. One agent efficiently backs up unlimited virtual guest machines to disk or tape and Backup administrators can easily restore an individual file or folder saving management time and resources.
BE’s agent and options can help provide efficient, flexible database and granular data recovery down to an individual emails or documents with Granular Recovery Technology (GRT) for Exchange, SharePoint, Active Directive and virtual servers. BE provides CDP for Microsoft Exchange, SQL, file servers, and desktops/laptops almost eliminating any backup windows-without disrupting user productivity or application usage.
Where the core product is pretty powerful – why not take a look at how you can enhance your backup strategy with the agents and options you can add to your backup strategy to give you more backup for your bucks.
Disaster Recovery – Just Tick The Box And Move On?
Symantec recently carried out a survey on DR habits and discovered that, on the whole, DR is possibly not as successful as it should be. Seems a bit weird when the same organisations surveyed said that DR has an impact on customers, sales, and revenue. Nearly one-third of organisations reported that DR will impact their customers, while over one-fifth admitted this could also impact their sales and revenue. Hmm, I smell a rat!
OK, it’s pretty simple for me to talk about, but implementing a DR strategy can be difficult. You don’t want to impact the end user or production systems, you also don’t want to make a mess of your infrastructure in the process of putting in the very system that is supposed to save your bacon. As a result approximately half of the organisations surveyed test their DR plans either only once a year or less.
Bottom line: Organisations are not testing frequently enough to improve their plans and are not using adequate tools to reduce the overall business impact.
Ah, well, in that case that’s easy to overcome … unless you have a virtual environment, of course? The Symantec survey reports that only 37% of respondents reported that they back up all of their virtual systems. Currently, native DR tools in virtual environments are immature and don’t provide the top level protection that organisations really need today. While having a DR plan is essential in most organisations, knowing that DR plans work is just as important.
One of the reasons that DR plans fail is because they do have a tendency to become shelf-ware and this is mainly because implementing DR plans is pretty tricky. Well, here’s where you can save yourself some heartache.
Backup Exec System Recovery provides organisations with extended system protection with Scheduled Automated Virtual Conversion – NEW to 8.5 .. what this does is builds on the off-site copy capability. If you have a BESR server at your DR site that can see the duplicated images (FTP’s from the main site) a schedule can be set to convert the images from v2i to either vmdk or vhd formats. Once this process is complete the resulting virtual file can be mounted on a VMware ESX or Microsoft Hyper-V server ready to be booted should disaster occur at the main site – good, hey?
Virtualisation is Causing Re-Evaluation of Backup Plans
Symantec recently carried out its annual IT Disaster Recovery survey of 1,000 or so IT managers across 15 countries. Now, there are a bunch of really interesting facts and it’s well worth a read, but the staggering revelation I think is that the number of applications that IT managers consider mission-critical has jumped 20% in the last year.
We all know that apps like email have crept up on us and become really important to business over the last few years. But what I think is interesting is that at some point in the last 10 years IT has ceased to support the business and become the business! What do I mean – if the lights go out the business stops. The IT Disaster Recovery survey shows that on average 56% of applications are now considered mission-critical. Such a rapid increase may well pose considerable difficulties for, not just high availability but things we take for granted like Backup.
This is particularly true for those organisations who have implemented server virtualisation projects. It is dead easy to deploy virtual machines, but quite as simple to make sure they are backed up properly. I feel particularly sorry for those poor sods using either different backup solutions for backing up virtualised infrastructures or those who do not have an agent for virtualised environments. It must be a nightmare typing to write scripts for each virtual machine! Thank goodness we have Backup Exec!
If you don’t know there is an offer on the Backup Exec Virtual Agent currently – runs to the end of June 2009, so if you upgrade to the latest Backup Exec 12.5 virtual agents and Save Up to 35% off !
Virtualisation is the major factor causing organisations to re-evaluate their disaster recovery plans today. A major challenge is deploying and maintaining the different tools for backup that are needed for their physical and virtual environments–indicating a need for tools that work across multiple operating systems and virtualisation technologies. The top challenge when backing up virtual systems involves resource constraints, which highlights the need for simplified and automated backup solutions that reduce manual tasks for administrators.
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