Thanks for the awesome suggestions. What I ended up doing was to script out all the backups and then run them from the command line using Windows 2003 Scheduled Tasks. That was done just to get everything compliant. I will not allow it to stay in such a vunerable state. I need a more secure (and stable) task sheduling system other than Windows 2003 Scheduled Tasks. So, with that in mind....HomeBrew (user from post above) your suggestion of that freeware scheduling app will be downloaded and tried out.

Any suggestions for better blind backup job monitoring in such an environment?

I love all feedback, so don't hold back on me with those excellent ideas!!

Thanks.