ntbackup vs. Backup Exec for SBS 4.5

[Richard Darling]

Well, I have the sbs 4.5 up and running - thanks to everyone who responded to my questions.

Before I have the users start to save their files on the server I want to install a backup procedure.

Why does everyone I know buy a third-party product (usually Backup Exec) rather than use ntbackup and schedule it using "Scheduled Tasks"? Are than any advantages to Backup Exec or disadvantages to ntbackup?

As always, help appreciated (with points!!!)

Richard

[Jamie Hughes]

Hi Richard,

I think you have to look at your environment and see if ntbackup will meet your needs. NTbackup is a very basic backup program which doesn't take into account open files, etc.

Many of the 3rd party packages such as Veritas, have special modules that will allow you to do online backups of your Exchange database, SQL, etc. If you want flexibility and you need to backup open files, you will probably want to go with a more robust solution. Hope that helps.

Best regards,
Jamie Hughes

[Roger Faucher]

Hi:

I used to use Veritas (Seagate) Backup Exec for all the SBS installations I did. Most of my service calls were related to problems with this product. I actually lost customers because of it and the support wasn't that great. Also, if you want to be able to backup open files you have to buy an extra module for an additional $300-$500. Try using AT commands to do the backup (remember to stop services like Exchange and SQL so their files won't be open and restart the services after the backup). This will be somewhat time-consuming but you'll feel great when it's working and you have that extra $1000 in your pocket.

Your question brings up an interesting question. I wonder if it would be worth upgrading to SBS 2000 just for the backup. I seem to recall you only recently bought SBS 4.5. You may be a candidate for a free upgrade to SBS 2000. Give it some thought. Good luck!

[Joseph T. Wyckoff]

One of the reasons that people use third party products (like HP's Omniback, which I support) is that the product is updated to deal with new applications.

NTBACKUP can backup Exchange, but it does not integrate with SQL (arguably it doesn't need to) or Oracle, or Lotus Notes / Domino, etc...

Each of these applications does have its own tool (presumably) but how many backup tools do you want to use?

On the other hand, at restore time, guess what - often you need to know how to use those tools, anyway.

A big advantage for my product, Omniback, especially compared to the simple NTBACKUP - is that the tape drive(s) can be remote over the network. You can backup one or a hundred servers to one tape drive.

Well, that is glib - there are of course limitations... but given that tape drives are expensive, there is a natural tendency not to want to buy 100 of them.

Veritas (etc.) have similar features.

Omniback is a pretty complex product - we call it enterprise backup software, and is reasonably suited to backing up NT, Solaris, Netware, HPUX, AIX... but the price is that it is complex. Omniback will out perform NTBACKUP in many (most?) cases because we run multiple processes.

However, if you only have a DDS tape drive, pretty much any backup software will be limited by the performance of the drive.

Similarly, if you are using Omniback (etc) to backup via the network - you won't see much performance on a 10mbit network. NTBACKUP can't really do this. Well maybe it can, you could mount a network drive...

Other software may be focused on a specific platform (NT) or support a different kind of tape drive or library... for example there are a number of drives out there 'in the wild' that Omniback does not support.

Diagnostics is a big issue. I used to use both NTBACKUP and Seagate's Backup Exec 6.x (this was a while ago) Frankly the diagnostics for both STUNK. Seagate got better (with a free upgrade to 7.x.)

NTBACKUP didn't really get any better as far as I know.

Not a big deal when things are healthy, of course. Critical when things are so-so, or worse.

As to the AT functionality - it has at least one problem. AT jobs are not run as a specific user normally. That means your backup is likely to fail, or to miss certain files that could be backed up. You should pay close attention to user/security/filesystem permission stuff.

As you noted, there is an additional module to deal with 'open files' and it is pricey.

Omniback integrates with a version of St. Bernard's OFM Open File Manager - for an additional fee.

http://www.stbernard.com

The real (full) OFM can be used with NTBACKUP.

Some products have 'enhanced functions' for disaster recovery - single floppy recovery or somesuch. Omniback has an EDR Enhanced Disaster Recovery which can be used on some systems - but, again is complex, and requires you to set things up and test them in advance.

The short answer is - lots of reasons... not all may apply to you.

By all means, whatever you do, continue to use NTBACKUP, maybe daily, maybe once per quarter.

At disaster time, you will be glad that you have multiple backups with multiple different backup software to get you out of a pinch.

As noted earlier... waiting for support to call you back, while your server is down, or an important file is missing, is VERY frustrating. It is also a fairly normal occurence.

On the other hand, who are you going to call for support of NTBACKUP? Microsoft, of course... or look at the web... you potentially have the same support issues there.

Whatever you do - test, do backups AND restores... and watch the SERVICE PACK readme's if NTBACKUP is your primary tool.

Good Luck.

[Richard Darling]

Thanks, Roger

Do you know the commands to stop the Exchange services? I am used to UNIX, and if you had it off the the top of your head you could save me some time...

The backup command was pretty straight forward.

Richard

[Roger Faucher]

Richard:

The following MSKB article has a batch file used to restart IIS and may be helpful.

I am attaching a file called services.exe which I used to use to accelerate the stopping of services when shutting down older versions of SBS. This was a Microsoft HotFix. Of course, that means you'd have to restart SBS to start the services. Maybe not such a good solution!

Ah, I just found the BAT file I was looking for. I will reply again and attach it there since I don't know how to attach multiple files. Good luck!

[Roger Faucher]

As advertised.....

[Richard Darling]

Roger, thanks...

Can I also assume that I just need to add the backup line after these stop commands and then use a start command to start each one that I stopped?
RD

[Roger Faucher]

Richard:

That ought to do it. Restart the services in the reverse order, of course. Let me know how it goes.

[Joseph T. Wyckoff]

You may want to throw in an explicit pause or wait into your scripting, as a service 'stopping' might not free up file locks as fast as you would hope.

If you want to get around open files issues on the cheap, there is an easy way... but not really suitable for high uptime servers.

If you install another copy of NT (best choice, on a separate diskdrive.) You can periodically reboot, to that 2nd copy of NT, and run NTBACKUP or your other backup software - and all of the files associated with the first OS, the registry, the .dll's, the executables for services, drivers, etc. will all be just plain files.

If you install NT to the same drive - that is not quite as good - since some areas, like the IIS directories, would be shared. Still it would get system critical files, and your applications like SQL and Exchange.

This results in a good, non-ambiguous backup... but restoring it requires a working copy of NT, the second copy... so that you can restore the orignal to the original location.

Good Luck.

[Richard Darling]

Joseph and Roger, Thanks for your help. I have been assigning only 7 points to responses because I find that forum members (including myself) have a tendency to not look at threads that have the rabbit in the hat assigned. I would like to still see if anyone else has any ideas and try the script for a few days...

thanks, again...

[Richard Darling]

Roger, I tested the script. When the services restarted several of the Exxchnage services didn't start:
MS Exchange Event Service
MS Exchange Internet Mail Service
MS Exchange Message Transfer Agent
Proxy Alert Notification Services

I did some surfing at the MS website and couldn't find two things I need:

1) the name for the above services to start

2) a command that equals the UNIX sleep command; I thought there was a sleep command, but when I issued it I received the message that it didn't exist.

Do you recommend any reference material to get this info.

Thanks

Richard

[Jamie Hughes · Accepted solution]

Hello Richard,

Here is a list of Exchange service dependencies (you will have to start one service before the other will start).

Directory depends on System Attendant.
Information Store depends on Directory, SA.
Scripting Agent depends on Directory, IS.
MTA depends on Directory, SA.
IMS depends on Directory, IS, MTA.

Here is a list of the actual service names that you can start from the command line:

MS Exchange Event Service - MSExchangeES - located in exchsrvrbinmad.exe

MS Exchange Internet Mail Service - MSExchangeIMC - located in exchsrvrconnectmsexcimcbinmsexcimc.exe

MS Exchange Message Transfer Agent - MSExchangeMTA

The Proxy Alert Notification Service is called mailalrt.

Sleep.exe is available in the 4.0 Resource Kit. You may be able to download the executable separately from Microsoft or check the 4.0 Resource Kit September 1999.

I hope that answers your questions.

Best regards,
Jamie Hughes


Richard - I have tried to edit this message twice but it won't accept a backslash for some reason. Sorry if those directories look strange. I will report the problem to our admin.

[Joseph T. Wyckoff]

Just a tool to throw in your tool kit - there are lots of services out there... you can see them sort of from the services applet - but can't deal with this in an automated fashion there.

The comands to manage services at the prompt are

net start
net stop
net pause

Not all services can be paused - some will glith if you pause them - requiring a reboot to recover.

To look at help for these (or and NET commands you type

NET HELP START
NET HELP STOP
etc...

To see a list of the services that are running right now - type NET START.

You may (or may not - I haven't tried) be able to capture a list of these services by

NET START > c:/temp/file.txt

Once you have the list, of course searching the registry becomes pretty easy - There is a definite structure to the services so a quick look will probably provide you the info you need about services that may not be started at the moment.

There was substantial detail about this in the 3.51 resource kit - and I am sure it is SOMEWHERE in the 4.0 resource kits - of course the most detail about Exchange would be in the backoffice resource kits.

If you have technet, you should have a digital copy of these buried within technet.

Get a hold of this information somehow.. there are all sorts of tidbits and utilities buried in the resource kits.

A problem you will have is that there aren't that many people out there with good, solid experience with all of the tools you would find in SBS or a 'complete' environment.

To be an MCSE - I studied the basics, plus electives that were most relevant to me - SQL and TCP. Exchange was way too detailed, IIS was new, and of questionable value... I had a definite focus... and it ignored, frankly MOST of the MS backoffice applications.

The point is that sometimes you won't find (in a timely manner) someone that 'knows' or understands your problem - and I feel that a technet subscription, or a printed copy of the resource kits is very helpful.

Get your boss to spring for this, if you can. If you can't - look for magazines, or products that give you a sample technet CD.

[Roger Faucher]

Richard:

See if you can access this website. It's a great source of SBS information.

http://www.microsoft.com/directaccess/products/other/sbs/default.asp

Good luck!

[Richard Darling]

Gentlemen,

thanks for all your help!!! Hopefully, I can get back to concentrating on my L1000...

Richard

[Walter Kennedy]

If you are running SQL Base, or anything based on it, be careful with any backup program. Open SQL databases are NOT backed up by any backup program. The beauty of some of the third pary stuff, (SeagateExec or Omni) is that they shut down and restart the databases automatically.
We lost 5 years worth of HR files because my predecessor did not know this little fact. That is how I got my job!!!