So it's been a while since we posted, and generally that's because DPM is a godsend. It almost works without attention, and apart from a few quirks we've discovered, and the odd thing that happens but isn't ACTUALLY documented anywhere sane, things are good.
Compared to Backup Exec (we stopped using it on BEWS 10d), DPM 2010 seems to "just get it" when it comes to backups. Once a backup is setup, it knows how to backup, it knows when to backup and it actually backs up.
If there's an issue it attempts to fix minor issues via consistency checks etc, and if there's really an issue, it is glaringly obvious for you to fix it. That's pretty good news when you're used to Backup Exec being hell on earth, randomly dropping jobs to "hold" status because of an issue and so on.
However yesterday a random issue cropped up which I hadn't seen before.
One of our Protected Servers Agent Status in the DPM console was "unavailable" - and the error logged was "10048 0x02740". The protected server in question is running Exchange Server 2007.
This appears to have happened because the IIS process on the protected server was suddenly using TCP Ports 5718 and 5719. This prevents the DPM Remote Agent from starting.
To fix this, you can simply:
(a) Stop IIS (iisreset /stop)
(b) Run the DPM Agent
(c) Start IIS (iisreset /start)
...or in our case, do nothing - by this morning it had cleared itself (we hadn't restarted IIS as we didn't want to drop the live users connected via OWA and OutlookAnywhere on this box).
Showing posts with label backup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label backup. Show all posts
Wednesday, 8 August 2012
Monday, 13 June 2011
Sometimes you want Backup Exec back...
So some weeks on and DPM on the whole is everything a backup product should be. There are a few annoyances and a few things that need radical improvement, but on the most important factor - backup reliability, DPM wins hands down.
One area though that Backup Exec was MUCH better at is E-Mail Alerting. Firstly, it was more flexible - any SMTP server was OK, and that worked great for us. DPM however only seems to work if it's pointed at an Exchange based environment - which was a bit annoying since that's not really how I wanted it done. I guess that's the side effect of the "optimal for microsoft based workloads" strategy, but nonetheless...
The other bit though is the alerting capability. You can have alerts for 3 categories "Informational" "Warning" and "Critical", and a list of e-mail addresses to send to. You get one list of e-mail addresses and ALL of those addresses can receive the alerts you enable.
You can't set any thresholds, you can't customise the alerts and most annoyingly, it alerts you to both "Problems" and "Resolved". Given it tries to self resolve I was hoping "Critical" would only alert you to issues it has tried to resolve and failed at or cannot resolve because it needs our intervention.
All in all a bit poor and makes me want BEWS back, just for that bit anyhow...
One area though that Backup Exec was MUCH better at is E-Mail Alerting. Firstly, it was more flexible - any SMTP server was OK, and that worked great for us. DPM however only seems to work if it's pointed at an Exchange based environment - which was a bit annoying since that's not really how I wanted it done. I guess that's the side effect of the "optimal for microsoft based workloads" strategy, but nonetheless...
The other bit though is the alerting capability. You can have alerts for 3 categories "Informational" "Warning" and "Critical", and a list of e-mail addresses to send to. You get one list of e-mail addresses and ALL of those addresses can receive the alerts you enable.
You can't set any thresholds, you can't customise the alerts and most annoyingly, it alerts you to both "Problems" and "Resolved". Given it tries to self resolve I was hoping "Critical" would only alert you to issues it has tried to resolve and failed at or cannot resolve because it needs our intervention.
All in all a bit poor and makes me want BEWS back, just for that bit anyhow...
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Error E000FE30 every day on one server...
...for months. For months I've struggled with a problem on ONE server, that happens to be at a remote site on a different subnet, connected via a WAN VPN Link.
Every day, one or more jobs would fail with Backup Exec Errors, mainly E000FE30 - with the useful and generic messages about "communications failure has occured" and sometimes the "connection lost to the remote agent".
Needless to say, I've spent some time working on this, and tried all sorts. Reconfiguring the system to use a different WAN link to ensure the fault isn't with the WAN. Nothing. Checking to ensure the issue isn't with the server, reinstalling agents, trying all sorts.
I've updated network drivers, checked all sorts of patches etc - but nothing, Still this error - consistently failing jobs.
I even got a colleague to look at it for a fresh pair of eyes and he too tried all sorts. Given the error, we suspected "something" to do with comms, but never found any issue, and in hundreds of tests conducted could never replicate the issue - transferring large files to/fro the server worked fine etc.
Today I found the answer. The "Large TCP Offload" feature on the Network Card. While I've seen plenty of issues with this feature before, you normally see it with terrible throughput on the system in general and so on - but this machine is solid as a rock for everything else.
Still, the setting is off, and first complete, full backups in a few weeks... voila!
Top tip for anyone else facing this problem - don't just check the network drivers, but try turning off these features, even if you cannot see this issue at any other time on the machine.
Is this a Backup Exec issue? I'm not sure, but I'm happy to blame it since everything else works just fine.
Every day, one or more jobs would fail with Backup Exec Errors, mainly E000FE30 - with the useful and generic messages about "communications failure has occured" and sometimes the "connection lost to the remote agent".
Needless to say, I've spent some time working on this, and tried all sorts. Reconfiguring the system to use a different WAN link to ensure the fault isn't with the WAN. Nothing. Checking to ensure the issue isn't with the server, reinstalling agents, trying all sorts.
I've updated network drivers, checked all sorts of patches etc - but nothing, Still this error - consistently failing jobs.
I even got a colleague to look at it for a fresh pair of eyes and he too tried all sorts. Given the error, we suspected "something" to do with comms, but never found any issue, and in hundreds of tests conducted could never replicate the issue - transferring large files to/fro the server worked fine etc.
Today I found the answer. The "Large TCP Offload" feature on the Network Card. While I've seen plenty of issues with this feature before, you normally see it with terrible throughput on the system in general and so on - but this machine is solid as a rock for everything else.
Still, the setting is off, and first complete, full backups in a few weeks... voila!
Top tip for anyone else facing this problem - don't just check the network drivers, but try turning off these features, even if you cannot see this issue at any other time on the machine.
Is this a Backup Exec issue? I'm not sure, but I'm happy to blame it since everything else works just fine.
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