superatticman

Am thinking of ways to improve the speed of our backup. Quick overview of our network is about 30 virtual servers hosted on a SAN disk array. We use Vsphere as the host OS. And 6 physical servers. Obviously for file and email servers, conventional backup is the way to go so as to be able to restore individual files or emails. However, would I be right in saying that a 'bare metal' vhd backup of the other servers would result in a much faster backup??? Would have thought writing 1 extremely large file rather than thousands of small, in some cases tiny files would give a much better throughput? We use Arcserve 16.5 with an LT06 library.

And another type which started to become very common in the early 2000s. "The MSCE" Their career in IT started when they paid £3000 to do a full blown MSCE advertised in the local paper. The advert promised them £30,000 a year once qualified. However, they soon got bored with it all. All these odd and funny terms. 'Delegation of control Wizard' 'Reverse lookup zones' 'layer two tunneling protocol' and some totally hideous sounding command lines. All those tedious labs, "hey, wheres the action? I thought IT was fun?" They lose interest but hear of these 'brain dumps' which if studied hard will get you through the exams. The lure of that £30k starting salary kicks in again. Off they go, get through the exams due to a mix of of what they learned in class and braindumping. Awarded an MSCE which must mean they are an IT Professional. And so they land their first job as a network engineer. This lasts about a month as despite their best efforts, they fall at every first hurdle. In fact, they struggled to even diagnose a faulty patch cable. So off they go, convinced it was just a bad experience, exaggerate on their CV and manage to get another job with a smaller IT company. Again, out after a month having totally screwed up a server and lost data. And so it carries on. Eventually end up buying a server off ebay, setting up a couple of client PC's and go back to their study material to replicate some true to life environments. Including building a server from scratch, setting up DHCP and applying group policies. As they've become handy with a screwdriver and now have some basic OS skills get a £15k job with PC repair shop which has a few base techies and field engineers. Know all attitude puts them at odds with technicians which have nothing on paper but know their stuff. Soon gets a dose of reality, knows that £30k job is still miles away and becomes a bit more humble about it all. Gets some experience with networks shadowing another engineer and is soon capable of providing basic administration of a small network. Two years pass and and he's now getting a bit more confident with network administration and is now charged with looking after a 50 user site with a senior engineer to help him out if things get a bit hairy. 3 years pass and he's now a popular and respected IT support worker. Fancies a change. Applies and gets a £35k job in Central London working for a multinational company. Fits in fine once he learns the territory. Just realises his MSCE has expired but couldn't care less as he's now got a proven track record.

Definite similarities with the 'know all' here. But you are dead right. I've come across this type loads of times!! They always know the answer, always tell you what you should have done. A bit like when you go to visit your relatives in the Shires on Boxing day and one bright spark always reckons there's a far easier route to get there than you took. Despite the fact you've been going there for 30 years and have the shortest and quickest route to a tee. But get him in the car with you and he won't have a clue. "Must have changed the roads a bit since I was last here".

A recent conversation on another thread has led to the addition of another tongue in cheek fine specimen: The Two Foot Diver More commonly recognised as the techie who dives into every new bit of technology with both feet regardless of whether its any good or not. As soon as a new release of windows comes out (having already spent months on the beta version), there he is, rolling it out en masse to the network and then usually getting loads of grief in return thanks to the fact its probably broken half the applications. Tells everyone they should be grateful because they've got the latest kit even quoting "You should feel lucky to have Windows 8, the MoD and NHS are still using XP". But is often found backtracking and desperately searching for backups of those old Windows XP/7 disk images that he cleared off the server in the name of procurement.

Don't let some of these know all techies get your spirits down. IT is rife with these types. Thankfully though they've bailed me out a few times on here so lets just try and exist happily together!

My personal preference (as someone above is suggesting) is to wait for the first service pack to be released before implementing.

I think the answer is somewhere between the two. If I was to simply freeze my skillset in 2006 I'd probably be out of a job by now. Absorbing new technologies is indeed part of our job. However, implementing technology on the basis that its new or different and maybe exciting for hardcore IT Professionals is not always the best thing for the customer. IT helpdesk teams are usually a healthy mix of hardcore geeks and more relaxed IT professionals who bring other factors to the table such as organisation, project management and customer service. The former don't like being constantly reminded about their lack of tidyness or organisation and the latter about not being up with the latest gadgetry at every level!!!

Here Here. Like me, you just want something that works and something that you like. Especially for home use. Whilst IT types are supposed to fit a certain description and be obsessed with computers 24/7, some of us are a bit more relaxed about our profession. I don't recall plumbers or electricians constantly fannying about with their home plumbing or wiring system. They just want something the works. Leave the head scratching for the day job.

For home use, I absolutely love Windows 8 professional. Have it installed on a 5 year old Dell Laptop with an SSD and it flies along. No real issues with any software not working, although I only really use the laptop for internet browsing, Office, Photoshop and a few other bits. But we're in no rush to roll it out at work. Windows 7 provides a stable and manageable environment, although we may well be going with Windows 8 on some tablets in the near future. For home use though, most of us simply want something that works and aren't constantly having to patch, tweak and hack to get an acceptable experience. If you are one of these IT types that lives and breathes computers good luck to you but when I get home I just want to use my IT kit as most users use theirs at work.

We support a small office which basically has 5 XP client PC's logging into a Server 2003 File and Print Server. This is totally outside of the school network and will remain so. The non rackmounted Server is situated in their office and they don't have any real space for a proper comms room. They have complained about the noise of this server. The client PC's are Pentium 4 HT based and whilst reliable are now becoming a little slow even with XP and Office 2003. All they really need to do is: Have access to Word and Excel Have access to email via outlook Be able to print. Be able to backup their data on a daily basis. Be able to run a database program called CorePC of which currently resides on the server. I can imagine Office365 ticks the first 4 boxes. But am not sure about the last. How does backup work with cloud computing? I presume you can have a copy of the files locally and duplicated in the cloud? Would also be good if they could have their own weekly backup to take offsite but without needing a server. thanks Can anyone advise as whether Office365/cloud computing will be capable of running their database program?

Solved through luck than judgement! Would appear that all you need to do is to insert the DR media into the USB/FDD drive, boot from 2008 R2 Setup and it automatically scans removable drive bays for DR media. Am now happily restoring this server from tape in DR mode

Hi I am practicing disaster recovery on our new physical backup server. We have Arcserve 16.5 Backup installed on the server. Previously with 2003 Server, the procedure was to: Create machine specific DR boot media in Arcserve. Boot from Windows 2003 Server CD and press F2 for automated system recovery Insert DR media into the A: Drive, resume setup System then prompts you to insert Arcserve installation DVD Detects tape drive and then restore system Its still more or less them same procedure, except you can use USB media for your DR disk. What I would like to know has F2 ASR been replaced with something new? as I'm not getting this prompt when booting from the 2008 DVD. Thanks.

There will only ever be one General Zod and that will be Terrence Stamp!!!

Hmmmmmmmmmmm! And what did I install on there about 2 days ago? Arcserve 16.5 from scratch in preparation of it being our new backup server!! Blue screen gave the impression of being a 'hardware' issue. But gut instinct isn't always right I guess. Have restored the server via a ghost image I took minus the CA software. Will leave it a few days, do some memory testing etc and see what happens. And then install CA 16.5 and hold my breath......

Hiya Currently trying to diagnose a 'blue screening' issue with one of our remaining physical servers. Event logs give little clue and HP Insight Diagnostics reckons all is ok! Seatools does not pick up the hard drives so was just wondering whether theres anything out there that will heavily scrutinise hards disks and memory too. Cheers

Hi Am looking to set default file location on MS Publisher 2010. This can be achieved on Word, Excel and PPT via a GPO admx template. Some quick googling seems to indicate this has been left out of Publisher and Access for that matter too. Has anyone managed to find a solution to set the default file location? Currently it defaults to the desktop of which gives the user a brief error message as we lock the desktop down. Cheers

ME, now there was a horrible version of windows. Wasn't anywhere near as stable as Windows 2000 even if it had visual similarities. If anything was slightly locked down and dubiously patched version of Win98SE. Seem to recall it had no support for any of your 16 bit applications and immediately caused problems with some of your existing 32 bit apps. This was in the name of being a purely 32 bit home operating system. I believe its death was fairly swift due to a version of direct X being developed for Windows 2000, of which meant gamers and enthusiasts moved over pretty quickly.

8Gb should be plenty for a one use server.

Hi We are going to purchase a 2nd user proliant DL380 G5 server for use as our backup server. This is the minimum officially supported specification for Win2008 R2. All it will be used for is to host Arcserv of which runs a SQL Express 2008 database and then output data to an LT06 tape library via SAS riser card. The main choices we face are CPU configuration. What do you reckon? 1 x fast CPU 2 x mid spec CPU? Plenty of choices including 2 and 4 core processors about.

I'd always had the Police as a possible option as a career. However, I don't think I'd ever consider it nowadays. Not in this country anyway.

Conrad how much data are you backup up and what is the nature of your data? ie mailboxes, user files, servers etc.

Thanks for the responses. Am currently installed 2008 R2 and will see how I get on with drivers etc. Will give that support pack a go! Am also aware of throughput issues here. Currently the G4 has a PCI-X 100 riser card in. It would appear that the SAS controller cards of which the majority of LTO6 tape devices use require a PCI-E capable riser card. It would appear the G5 is the minimum recommended for SAS compatibility.

Hi Was thinking of running this on one of our older DL380 G4's as a new tape backup server. I notice that 2008 R2 server isn't officially supported (no HP support pack available) although 2008 server is. Has anyone managed to get this working and download all the drivers on a DL380 G4? Regards

We are currently seeing backup timings running past 9am on both full and incremental jobs. Total throughput on the drive is about half the maximum of the LT04 drive. This is due to the backup consisting of a large number of servers and document level email backup. Upgrading to an LT06 device would ensure less media is needed but I'm not convinced that r/w performance would increase due to the amount of processing going on beforehand. A possibility is to add another tape drive to our LT04 2024 tape library of which in theory would double the r/w capacity of that backup server. Is anyone running this configuration and what kind of performance increase are you obtaining?

Hi We've got a slight problem when logging in to our windows 7 machine, regardless of build. Certain options that should be available as an administrator are not. Ie 'Internet options' is not available, 'search' function not working. There are no restrictive policies applied to domain administrator at all. Anything obvious that we can start to look at? Its almost as if you are logging in as an administrator, but are not actually one! Thanks.