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One of the earliest tasks in anyone's networking career is to change backup tapes that have been running overnight. In the old days this was done through an ugly command console, and it wasn't always easy to see where problems lay when all you had to go on was a constantly flashing red LED. Like a baby crying, it was not always easy to work out exactly what the problem was.
Now, Arcserve 2000 Advanced Edition shows that backup software has come of age, and the thought and effort put into the product is immediately obvious. It took us barely an hour to install this latest offering from Computer Associates and back up an entire server.
We tested the software on a Viglen LX3 server installed with Windows 2000 Advanced Server and an HP DDS4 tape drive with a SCSI connection. We performed backups and restores for various folders and drives from the server as well as clients on our test network.
Right away, we saw that Arcserve 2000's backup speed is faster than that of the previous version, Arcserve for Windows NT 6.5.
Tape drive backup is slower than magnetic disk or mirrored site backups, but Arcserve 2000's new dynamic memory caching technology maximises performance, scaling with available memory to provide faster backup and recovery of data than other tape systems.
What's new?
New to this version of Arcserve comes support for Windows 2000 and a wide array of components that make it a suitable storage system for any corporate environment.
The browser-like management console offers full support for Microsoft's Cluster Service, a remote centralised repository and integrated anti-virus software.
When we fired up the application for the first time, we were introduced to the 'home' page for Arcserve. Here we were presented with options ranging from simple wizard tools to a link to CA's Arcserve website. From here it was very simple to start a backup of the server and complete it in good time.
The browser-like console and wizards make the restore and backup processes more user-friendly. The wizard guides you through the most popular options, such as full or incremental backup, verification, compression and job scheduling. Restoring files through the wizards was also quick.
But backing up a single server is not the point of a powerful piece of software like this. The application supports a wide range of clients from Linux, NetWare and OS/2 to various flavours of Unix.
The backups for these remote clients can all be handled from the management console. Initially, the only machine on view when the Job Status Manager is opened is your own.
It is from this point that you can start adding other machines to create a server group for backup. Again, it is easy to specify a machine or group for backup, and schedule jobs and alerts.
Tape rotation schemes
By far the handiest feature is Arcserve's tape rotation schemes. There is a choice of pre-designed schemes, an attribute common to most types of backup software. We especially liked the calendar view that shows a month of backups at once. This allows quick access to any day for quick configuration.
Another aspect is GFS rotation (Grandfather-Father-Son), a strategy for maintaining backups on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. This lets Arcserve automatically maintain a consistent interval of tape rotation and without further input from the administrator.
Wonderful wizards
The device wizard allows access to the backup media itself. At a glance, we were able to look at all the devices connected to the server. We could also perform a variety of functions on the tape itself, such as format, erase, retention, compression, eject or rebuild.
A more thorough examination of all tape devices is found in the device manager in the console. A nice feature is the ability to span a backup across multiple tapes or media automatically.
A certified device list can be accessed to see if all Arcserve 2000 components are compatible with a network, which can be a massive timesaver in heterogeneous networks.
We verified job logs through the centralised database with a remote repository that also showed error logs and device information from all computers on the network.
The Serverless Backup option takes back-up and restore operations off the server to reduce CPU usage, freeing server bandwidth for other important tasks. Also available is an image option which creates a block-level image of data, rather than file by file, to further speed operations.
Easy communication
The software also alerts its administrator though a variety of means, such as email, network broadcast, pager, SNMP, printer and Lotus Notes.
The alerts can identify to the administrator the current status of different jobs - handy if your desk is in a separate building to the backup server.
Arcserve has once again proved itself to be an intuitive piece of backup software. The new features are well thought out and straightforward, and its support for a wide range of different clients marks it out from most of its rivals.
See also:
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All Backup Tools
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