Making the much anticipated move to Commvault

[JG5]

After attending the Commvault admin class, I am anxious to make the move to Commvault. We will begin our installation on January 7th. I can hardly wait. I was very impressed with the features of the software. I look forward to sharing my experiences with everyone.

 

[Backupster]

We're still waiting ;-)

 

[JG5]

As usual my projects get pushed further and further out. We're now scheduled for February 16th, but we'll see if it happens by then or not.

 

[Houserocker]

We've had CV now for a little over a year. Although it is very decent product and there smoke and mirror show is very impressive. We've had a lot more hands on then we've wanted too. The main problem I think is there error messages don't give you enough information and there support is terrible for finding the actual answer. Get there latest resource cd becuase there are a ton of tools on it that you will use. Unfortunatly you'll have to call them to understand which ones to use so that takes up more time than warrented. Overall it's decent product but don't expect it to be as easy as there demo was. Expect a little more hands on work.

I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people ~ Jack Handy

 

[JG5]

Thanks for the input, I'll definitely keep that in mind. I think attending the admin class really helps - it gets into the nuts and bolts of the product definitely. In a few months I'm going to take the advanced class as well, so that may eliminate many of the phone calls to support that I would have made.

 

[Backupster]

The main problem I think is there error messages don't give you enough information and there support is terrible for finding the actual answer"

Yep, what I just need is a list what all error codes mean and then I can figure out evrything on my own...

Does anyone has a list with all errorcodes??

let me (us) know.

B

 

[Houserocker]

been trying to get one from CV for over a year, easier said then done becuase they don't seem to have a "tell all" list. They just tell you to go there web site and look it up or call them and they can assist. Their support site is not so user friendly so finding codes, tips, patches, etc can be a little time consuming. Also, they seem to have as many patches, hot fixes, etc as MS does monthly.

I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people ~ Jack Handy

 

[LordMarshal]

We are also getting ready to implement CommVault here (probably begining in early March). We have been on BackupExec 9.1 with pretty much not 1 day of 100% successful backups in over 8 months, so anything is an improvement!

I have to offer a counter point to Houserocker; the CV folks have pretty much bent over backwards to give us what we wanted, including every internal piece of documentation our Pre-Sales guy could get his hands on. I will inquire about a "what does this error code mean" document.

I think, like most things in IT, it is all about the person you are dealing with as to if you will have a good feeling about something...

Anyway, good luck, and keep us posted!

-LordMarshal

 

[Houserocker]

With all do respect Marshal. the key word in your reply was "pre-sales". CV was very good at getting us what we needed for our 30 day demo, etc before the purchase. Nonetheless, I'm not trashing CV because it is an improvment to me from BE 8 (which we had). Overall the product is good.

My whole point was the tech support you get over the phone and how the tier 1 support was less than helpfull on more than one occasion (there are three other area companies that have the same problems we have encountered with phone support). I only deal now with a tech 3 suport women is great but is not avaiailbe all the time. My suggestion is if you need to call support,try to get it escaleted.

I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people ~ Jack Handy

 

[birky]

Hi Houserocker

Do you have your support directly with CommVault because the way that CV support usually works is that the partner who provided the solution would provide the 1st line support & would then escalate your issue to CommVault if they were unable to provide a fix (this is usually part of the partner agreement).

If this is the case then it looks like the partner needs some serious training in the product.

 

[Backupster]

Hey Houserocker,

are you having direct contact to development in the US?

I get stuck cause my CV support is located in Germany.
Think that US support is better...but I'm not quite sure about it.

But escalating everytime...think you get a bad understanding between yourself and CV support...don't want that cause I still need them very often (we're partner of CV

 

[JG5]

Ok - so were pretty much installed and up and running. Everything is working well, just a few minor issues. The main one is that I keep receiving the "Failed to copy or verify chunk" errors when performing AUX copys from disk to disk or disk to tape over my gig-e connection. DNS is rock solid, I've reset the media agents, etc. The errors coincide with CRC errors on the switchport as well. We've replaced nearly every component on the line and still have the errors.

 

[MrsKcorp]

Failed to copy or verify chunk" is usually the tape itself. Not always!

Try this,

Next time CV chokes on a chunk:

Export/remove the tape it is trying to copy to.

Let CV get another scratch tape.

If it stops, you know the tape is getting old.

This will only work if it is the tape you are writing to. It will not work if it is the tape you are copying from.

 

[JG5]

All of the media is brand new, and this is predominantly when aux copying from disk to disk (although it does happen with tape as well). We're going to fail over to the redundant supervisor in our CAT tonight to see if it resolves anything.

 

[MrsKcorp]

Sorry, I only get that going to tape. My disk to disk is generally fine, but I do have to reboot everything in the right order every couple months.

Everything is Libraries, MediaAgents and CommServe. Then bring them up in that order.