Exchange is where ArcServe really stinks. It normally backs up fine, but
the restores are squirrelly when trying to go directly to Exchange.
Certainly not all the blame lies with CA, cuz Exchange really stinks all by
itself. If you're not already at Exchange 2000, be prepared to re-learn the
restore procedures when you upgrade.

Try getting the new version of ArcServe; I think it's at version 9.

As far as your applications go, almost every package you could look at
(CommVault, Netbackup, Networker, NetVault, Backup Express, Backup Exec,
etc) has plugins available to support them. I personally like CommVault
(Galaxy), BakBone (NetVault), and SyncSort (Backup Express). My least
favorites are CA's offerings (ArcServe and Enterprise Backup), because
they're so buggy. I try to stay away from Backup Exec. Two packages that
have their place is Legato Networker and Veritas Netbackup, but the learning
curve for these products can be steep.

Everybody OEMs the same open file manager from St. Bernard software. They
have the only one that's reasonably reliable. Legato tried writing their
own OFM a few years ago, and it just didn't work. The shameful fact is that
St. Bernard has the whole backup and restore industry by the short hairs,
and that's why it tends to be one of the more expensive agents. But keep in
mind that no matter what options you've purchased, there's no way to backup
a large .pst file while outlook is open without some sort of snapshot.

--paul

We are using ArcServe across our network, specifically for 4 tasks:
- backup our (small) SQL server
- backup our (slightly bigger) exchange server
- back up about 20 gig of "central data"
- back up about 100g from a "ghost" server

We've had all sorts of issues, and ended up recently with a screwed up
database, which needed a full reinstall. Now, after about 10 hours of
telephone support (maybe that should say "support / TRAINING") from Dell,
things are starting to make a *bit* of sense, and we are, at last,
starting
to make progress in actually being SUCCESSFUL in making tape backups!

I too would like to hear of what otehrs think about ArcServe, and other
viable alternatives for our setup (bear in mind we need across-network
backup, and clients to support SQL / Exchange / Open Files).


paul