But the problem is Backup Exec does appear to largely work reliably now - at the moment we're on 12 days 5 hours. It's hardly something you can call "reliable to 5 9's (e.g. 99.999% reliable), but it's certainly better than every few hours!
Just to recap the top tips...
1) Don't set more than a handful of jobs to run at once. They won't.
2) Although policies and templates are good ideas, expect to create lots of them because of tip 1.
3) Have plenty of Disk to Disk Folders, and set no more than 1 or 2 jobs per set as the concurrent limit.
4) Make good use of the Disk Reserve settings to ensure it has no excuse to run out of space and fail your jobs for weeks.
5) Set sane retention policies (e.g. don't just set it to weeks for the sake of it)
6) Split jobs by location, server, and drive.
7) Backup Exchange or SQL (and other "Agent" options) as distinct jobs
8) Keep your eye on Backup Exec at all times.
