Symantec Backup Exec for Windows Servers 11d review

Symantec's Backup Exec has an impressive track record for reliability and flexibility, and its networked architecture provides an effective way of making use of backup resources by concentrating them in one place. Centralising backup facilities can reduce costs by allowing the use of fewer tape drives, and centralising the control and monitoring processes ensures nothing goes unnoticed.

Making backups is vital, but without detailed information about each backup, trying to recover data from the archives is time-consuming and error-prone. Every backup and restoration run must be recorded, but paper records tend to be incomplete and can even disappear.Symantec is aware of this, and the system not only logs all its activities in meticulous detail, but also provides an excellent reporting facility. The predefined reports provide a detailed audit trail and backup history for an indefinite period. The system also has a report generator facility that can produce new reports as needed. All reports can be filtered on time and date.

Most of the routine tasks involved - such as setting up media sets and devices pools, creating and scheduling policies and jobs - can be handled by the wizards provided, which minimises the chances of error. But it's still possible to do all these tasks manually when something special is required.

The options for controlling backup devices and media are extensive, with the system keeping track of everything, including media that's offline. Devices can be allocated to device pools and media can be assigned to Media Sets with individual protection periods. Backup Exec ensures protected media remains protected, while expired media is recycled into the backup process. Full, incremental and differential backup modes are supported, and the combination of job scheduling, device pools and media sets provides sufficient flexibility for complex backup tasks.

For general tape-drive performance testing, we installed Backup Exec on a Supermicro dual 3GHz Xeon 5160 server running Windows Server 2003 and attached HP LTO-2 and LTO-3 (see issue 127, p178) tape drives to a dedicated Ultra320 SCSI card. We then asked Backup Exec to secure 7.4GB of test data. It reported average speeds of 30MB/sec and 72MB/sec for the LTO-2 and LTO-3 drives respectively. Backup Exec has always delivered in the performance stakes and 11d is no exception, as these are among the fastest speeds we've seen when using LTO-2 and LTO-3 drives to back up locally stored data.

Installation is simple, although Backup Exec 11d can't be installed on an encrypted or compressed volume. However, this restriction doesn't apply to the Remote Agent software, so other servers can be backed up through the main server.

Earlier versions of Backup Exec provided extensive backup features, and this release offers even more, including support for IPv6 networks, 64-bit Windows, and new and improved remote agent software for Mac OS X, Unix and Linux, but without compromising performance. It remains a top choice for network backup duties.

Author: Ian Parsons