Need some serious counseling with Data Protector.

Good day all, I appreciate everybody that reads this and give any feedback at all.
I took over a position in a very large company that likes to make its admins use tools that they already have, instead of what they are comfortable with. When I started I was forced to learn and use HP Data Protector. I am used to CommVault Galaxy and Veritas, not Data Protector. I first took a look at Data Protector and litteraly thought "This is a piece of s**t software." I still think it is and my company is not willing to listen to me about anything that I have to say because "we already paid for this".

In the best interest in the company I have tried to figure out the ins and outs of Data Protector with not much luck. I have been trying to get the product to do things that it seems it is unable to do.

I am warning you now, I am no Data Protector expert and I am expecting this post to go on for some time and I appreciate anybody that will stick through it with me because I am totally willing to learn this if it is possible.

I will start off by telling you a little about my environment:
Version 5.5
1 Cell with Cell Manager running on HP-UX
Backing up about 20 HP-UX servers and 250 Windows servers
Using 12 LTO 4 tape drives in an HP ESL library.
I use about 8 tapes a night with incrementals and 20 with Fulls on the weekend (still using LTO3 tapes)

Some of the issues I have are:

I read a report that put Data Protector in second place compared to CommVault Galaxy. I don't see how these two compare because I see so many better features in Galaxy then I do in DP. I am a Windows admin, are most people who use and like Data Protector Unix admins?
Backups do not Queue. I have to figure out how long each backup job will take and massage the times that they start. Otherwise the job will timeout and eventually fail because it hasn't started in a timely fashion because the tape drives are used up.
Need a seperate job for each of our 20 Lotus Domino, Oracle and SQL servers. This is a pain in the you know what because I have to have a seperate job for every server out there that has a special agent.
The documentation for HP DP recommends each cell have about 100 servers in it. Does anybody have more than this and is it a concern?
If you have your cell manager on Windows instead of Unix is the experience with the client any different?
I will start this off small, I have other concerns and will post them after I have gotten somebody's attention.

I would like to know also is: How much better is 6.0 compared to 5.5? Is the upgrade on Unix difficult? I want to upgrade but I think our Unix people are scared that it will be difficult.

Once again, I appreciate anybody and everybody for taking the time to read this and post your comments. I am slowly moving along with Data Protector and I am finally giving it the benefit of the doubt because things that I am reading says it is good, but I have yet to see it and I am hoping it is my ignorance of the product.

Thanks again.

Firedog7881,

My company is requesting I migrate from CommVault 8.0 SP4 to HP Data Protector 6.10. What has been your experience with HP Data Protector? Any pointers, advice or gotcha's to look out for?

jwrinkle

What's the driver for converting to it?

We're converting from it right now.

-M

-----Original Message-----
From: data-protector-bounces < at > backupcentral.com
[mailto] On Behalf Of jwrinkle
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 2:48 PM
To: data-protector < at > backupcentral.com
Subject: [DP] Need some serious counseling with Data Protector.

Firedog7881,

My company is requesting I migrate from CommVault 8.0 SP4 to HP Data
Protector 6.10. What has been your experience with HP Data Protector?
Any pointers, advice or gotcha's to look out for?

jwrinkle

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Currently HP Data Protector is used to backup the UNIX/SAP server farm. Management wants a Consolidated Backup solution for both UNIX and Windows for cost savings and has decided on HP Data Protector as the solution. I was not consulted on the during the decision making process and have been instructed to implement.

We have used Data Protector for a long time. All the way back to when it was called OmniBack. We have several hundred clients that we vack up using a single cell manager. All the drives are either locally attached (remote locations) or appear as locally attached via SAN zoning. We have 2 STK L700e libraries and 2 EMC DL710's in production (emulating STK L700e libraries) in production. We have another L700e @ our 2nd site. There is a parameter that you can set in the Global config file, (/etc/opt/omni/server/options/global) to adjust how long DP will wait before failing the session when waiting for tapes.

# SmWaitForDevice=WaitForInMinutes

# default: 60 minutes
# This timeout is used by the Backup Session Manager. The
# Backup Session Manager first tries to get a lock for all
# devices that will be used for backup. If a lock can not be
# obtained for the desired devices, the BSM will wait for the
# specified time-out. If it can not get a lock for the devices,
# the backup session will fail. If dynamic is used then the
# Backup Session Manager tries to get a lock for the minimum
# number of devices used for backup. In general,
# SmWaitForDevice is used as a time-out for different kinds of
# queuing (queuing for lock, license etc.).

We have been on 6.0 for a long time and are presently planning on going to 6.11.

Notes on upgrading to V6.:

The Upgrade from 5.5 to v6.0 isn't difficult on HP-UX. You need to ensure you backup the d/b in the event there is a disaster with the upgrade. Find the latest tape of the d/b backup just to be safe.

Make sure all backup complete and the database backup has run.

STEP 1

in opt/omni/sbin:

./omnisv -stop (This stops the omni db)

2) Backup the following directories to an NFS mount somewhere within your network

**These are the names I used**
cp -pr /var/opt/omni ( to the NFS mount ) /export/var/opt/omni/* .
cp -pr /opt/omni ( to the NFS mount ) /export/ opt/omni/* .
cp -pr /etc/opt/omni ( to the NFS mount ) /export/etc/opt/omni/* .

Once your done, make sure the data copied over correctly and follow the upgrade notes carefully.

[b]CAVEAT[/b]
If your trying to upgrade to a x86 then there will be a huge problem. The D/B can't convert from HP-UX to x86 format. You will have to start from scratch...[u]

Once your cell manager upgrade is done, check for any new patches that came out. Patch the cell server.

[b]PART 2[/b][/u]

Your windows push server needs to be upgraded to the same version of D/P. Once this is done, remember to patch to current levels. This part is easier...

When all is done, you will need to patch all your clients to ensure they get the new version and patch levels. This will take some time as you stated there are 20 HP-UX boxes and over 200 Windows servers..

Good Luck