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Using 3rd party software for SQL Server backups

  • April 12, 2004 at 1:41 pm

    #108004

    Has anyone had experience using ‘VERITAS Backup Exec For Windows Servers Agent for MS SQL Server’ to run backup jobs?   If so, what are the pros and cons? 

     

    I have always preferred using SQL Server Agent (not the maintenance plans) to run backup jobs and don’t know why anyone would want to use 3rd party software to do something SQL Server Agent does perfectly.  Any advice?

  • April 12, 2004 at 1:53 pm

    #502473

    Backing it up directly to tape will slow your restore process.  Here we backup to disk, and then veritas back up our backup to tape.

     

    mom

  • April 12, 2004 at 2:08 pm

    #502475

    Just a note of warning regarding 3rd party apps for backups...they have a tendency to backup all nice and happy, but when you go to restore you find that they don't... Always dump your db's to disk, you could use SQL Litespeed to speed up and compress the files, and the restore works, but I'd use nothing that goes directly to tape...


    Shamless self promotion - read my blog http://sirsql.net

  • April 12, 2004 at 5:35 pm

    #502483

    Haven't done much with it. Called in as a consultant to some companies that have used it but cannot restore. Worked with Veritas and sometimes successful.

    My 2 cents: Not worth the potential hassles. Backup to disk and then use the standard Veritas to get to tape. Or better yet, spend the agent money on Litespeed and lower your disk and tape requirements, plus backup time.

  • April 13, 2004 at 2:28 am

    #502507

    My problem to backup to disk is the size of our databases.

    My biggest databases are over 300GB so if I would need to backup everything on disk before putting the data on tape I would need more the 2 TB only for the intermediate storage.

    Not quite cost effective isn't it?

    By the way we are using TSM (Tivoli Storage Manager - Tivoli Data Protection for MSSQL) to backup directly to tape and it's working resonably fine. Of cours the restore is not the fastest I could imagine... The TSM server itself is running on an OS/390 box and a huge tape library (1200 slots) is attached to.



    Bye
    Gabor

  • April 13, 2004 at 7:15 am

    #502542

    I've been using it for about a year. I've done backups, restores, and moves and haven't had any problems with the software itself. The hardware we backup to has been a different story. We use a centralized tape server and it is not reliable. I'm in the process of changing my backups to go to disk first and then tape. Not because of the Veritas software but because of our tape server.

  • April 13, 2004 at 7:44 am

    #502552

    I've been using the Veritas product for several years and have had great success with it.  On our prod SQL server I am lucky enough to have a large window at night where I can take SQL down and backup the flat files with Veritas.  We go directly to tape with the backup. 

    I have also used the SQL module for Veritas.  It also has performed well for me.  You can use it to backup filegroups and or the DB's themselves.  Again, with this backup we go right off to tape as well, not the fastest but it has been very reliable.

    I use both types of tapes to "refresh" the data on our development and test SQL servers and have had very good luck with Veritas.  Yes it does do a lot of the same things MS provides inside SQL, but I find the interface, scheduling functions and the reports of Veritas to be very good and I am comfortable with it.  The learning curve is not too bad either.

  • April 13, 2004 at 9:19 am

    #502586

    Yep, we have Veritas Backup with the SQL Agent and it also uses the Backup Accelerators and I don't trust it!  It has caused some deadlocks in some of my more active databases.  (We run 24/7 collection data from all over the world.)  and there have been times when it said it was successfully backed up and when we restore the DB, it is not functional. 

    For my production and development databases, I use T-SQL and schedule my backup jobs from within SQL Server to another storage array.  I run tran log backups every hour and a full backup every night.  Most of my DBs are about 10GB to 20GB.  Takes a bit to run but is well worth the security of knowing I can trust it. 

    I have had better luck with Veritas backing up my backups then with them hitting my databases directly.  I just have to make sure that my backups are running correctly. 

    If you stick with Veritas, make sure you test out a couple of backups every now and then to make sure things are backing up and restoring correctly. 

    Good luck!

    Shawn

     

    Accepting all invites

  • April 13, 2004 at 1:02 pm

    #502630

    We have been using it for about a year and have found it to be very reliable.  We first backup to disk and then veritas grabs our production dump areas and moves them to tape.  We also test restore capability several times a month to make sure that we dont run into any recovery problems.  We used to use Tivoli and had problems all of the time. 

    We have continued this process even though we now have two SAN's.  I am even considering direct electronic vaulting for a couple of our most critical databases.

     

    Veritas also has some nice reporting features if you need to give daily backup status reports to any of your upper management.

  • April 20, 2004 at 4:17 pm

    #503557

      

  • April 21, 2004 at 10:59 am

    #503687

    I had a HUGE problem with Veritas BE and their Agent for SQL Server. First thing - it was a VERY specific issue.

    I bought Veritas BE 8.6 with my DELL tape library. I was using it to backup a SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition database. SQL Server was on a active/passive cluster on a Windows 2000 Advanced Server platform and both SQL Server and Veritas BE were on the same servers. And we had the BE version prior to 3878.

    We had a hardware failure that required rebuilding the system from scratch. Once the system was rebuilt, I tried to restore from tape. Only then did I find out that there was a known issue with the SQL Agent and the configuration I had. If Backup Exec was not version 3878 the restore wouldn't work. Both Veritas and DELL knew about this issue BEFORE selling us the product, but neither of them told us about it and they didn't supply the HOTFIX (#4).

    Solution: After passing Non-disclosure forms back and forth, we sent the tapes to Veritas for recovery. DELL paid for it since they were responsible. However, it took almost a whole month for Veritas to recover the data. They had to build a system similar to ours and theirs crashed three times while trying the recovery.

    I have applied the hotfix but I no longer trust third-party backup solutions. I will use SQL Server to do the initial backup and then use third-party software to copy the backup files to tape.

    If you MUST use the SQL Agent, definitely test your RESTORE ability frequently. I did not have the ability to do this and found out the hard way that the restore wouldn't work. Also, keep up on the patches/hotfixes.

    -SQLBill

  • May 1, 2004 at 12:13 pm

    #504930

    Thanks for the info, SQLBill.  I am fighting this with every resource I have.  This info will really help!

    /S

  • May 1, 2004 at 12:16 pm

    #504931

    Thanks to everyone else, also.  Every response helps!

    /S

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