Topic: Tapeware users - sound off

[jb]

I'm thinking about switching to tapeware for SME 6.  I'd like to hear from others that are using tapeware with 5.6, etc.  I did install Darrell May's tapeware rpm.  Then I downloaded the latest version from tapeware's site and did the install on that rather than the version bundled in the rpm.  It is working.  Now I need to dig in a bit and see about setting up a re-occurring backup job, test a full restore, see if it can do an interactive restore, etc.

Any helpful tidbits/gotchas/comments are welcomed.

Thanks,

John Bennett

[Boris]

John,
manuals for the Tapeware very helpfull. I'd advise you to read them. Also TechSupport is available even for evaluation time. We use it for many servers with great success (SME, Generic Linux, Netware, MS NT/2000) and backup multiple servers to few tape drives.
There are some tricks to use it on multihomed servers and with tape changers, but they known to TW techsupport and if you run in the problem, solutions/advises available.

[Dan Williams]

It is the best.
I use it on all my servers very reliably.
It is like anything, you have to work with it until you are comfortable with it.
Restores are quick etc.
The one thing I have found is the service does not load at startup, although it asks if you want it to. I have just added the command to start the service to rc.local, works every time.
Dan

[Harald]

I use Tapeware 7 on a few SME boxes.
Indeed it doesnt start on boot-up.
I use SCREEN to run TWADMIN so that I can (re)connect to it thru a SSH session. WORKS GREAT.

[Stephen Sloan]

Been using it for several years. Always worked well. Especially like the remote management capabilities.

[John Anderson]

I am running 5.5

I am using Tapware 6.2 SP4C


The backup works fine, however I have problems with verify. It will stop on a file and stay that way until I eject the tape manually. It does not stop on the same file each time also sometime it may work fine. I have changed from Full Verify to Quick Verify but it still sticks.


Any help would be appreciated.

Regards,

John A

[Dan Williams]

Get the latest service pack?
5B
http://tapeware.com/?PID=260
Dan

[John Anderson]

Dan,

I did what you suggested, I have run one test and it worked fine. I have now set the back up to run at 11:00pm so I will see what happens. I also downloaded and install the service pack for windows.

Thank you for you help


Regards,


John A

[%sig%]

[Dan Williams]

No problem,
It will work great.
If you use this a lot and rely on it, I would approach tapeware for an upgrade, I am using the 6.0 and 7.0 reliably on lots of servers.
Dan

[John Anderson]

Dan,

Just thought that I would let you know that the problem has returned. The first backup at 11:00pm worked fine, but since then I have run about 4 scheduled backups and each time it has stuck on a different file during verify.

I will post my problem on Tapware forum and see if they can offer any explanation.

Regards,

John A

[%sig%]

[Dan Williams]

Hi,
I would be curious if this happens in the newer versions.
Can you downlad install and try the 30 day trial of the latest?
Dan

[jb]

I am testing with 7.00 sp3b and it seems to be working just fine without any of the aforementioned issues.

JB

[John Anderson]

Dan,

Will download a copy and try it.


Regards,

John A

[jb]

Hopefully, some of you are still monitoring this.  I can't get tapeware 7.0 SP3 for the life of me, to e-mail the results of the backup to admin.  I install tapeware, then the email add-on, added my smtp server, and changed the user to what I wanted to see from. I also added the alertEmail=yes.  Still nothing.  Is tapeware sending the results of the backup job to root?  What about if the backup was cancelled, crashed, wrong media, write protected media?  It looks like I have to add some more special error code handling for tapeware.  Someone that has some of this setup, please let me know how you did it, and what your tapeware.ini look like.

Thanks,

John Bennett

[Boris]

TW sending e-mails to its administrators account (or account who owns the job if you created one). You need to modify property for administrator account and specify its e-mail address.