Anyone had any experience with it? It's backup software that came with our tape drive except it's insanely complicated and probably massively powerful too with lots of jargon like (I think):
Storage Policy = Tape Drive
Backup Set Subclient = Files Selected for Backup.

I'm looking for any sort of book or doco on using it or just some tips. The help is similarly complex and goes from "here's a manual backup" (which works fine) to "now do a scheduled job using the subclient with the associated storage policy" etc.

What is the purpose for this backup? Is this just for you personally, is it for a small group of users, or for a large departmental files server? What sort of backups do you need right now? Nightly, weekly, monthly?

Reason I ask is, if the job is big enough, you might want to dump the software that came with the drive and buy a commercial backup software package. Something more widely used, with better documentation and support, such as ArcServe (or whatever they've changed its name to these days).

If the job is small enough, see if Windows Backup recognizes the drive and you can just use that instead. Much simpler.

If you're going Big, you're probaly going to run into a bit of a learning curve even with well-documented software. Programs like ArcServe are meant to back up multiple file servers and desktops, manage vast tape libraries, and use plug-ins that allow 24x7 databases to be backed up even while they're in-use. They have complicated scheduling options, and the ability to save and load multiple schedule sets at the same time. A tool with that kind of power is going to seem complicated at first, because you're not going to be using all of its features.

Sounds like you're somewhere in the middle, between the simple manual backup and the huge enterprise backup. I don't know if there are any products that fit that niche. You may have to bite the bullet and get a serious enterprise backup package and just get used to its complexity.

Thanks for the reply Tony. It was a bit of a long shot asking here - just thought someone might have had some experience.

It is for work environment so will be done regularly and needs to be reliable. So Windows Backup is out really. We're talking ~1 million files totalling 300-400GB. A 50 user server. Possibly with Exchange Server soon too so that will require the Exchange plugin. Daily backups will be the norm too.

This is professional software like ArcServe/Veritas/whatever. As I understand it they can be equally cryptic. We actually paid for it - it wasn't a freebie like I implied. It was recommended by Dell to go with the Dell (actually IBM) LTO3 drive we purchased. It's too late to return it and get something else - my fault - not enough time to set it up.

If I had the choice again I probably would pick Yosemite (old Tapeware). Although not the greatest, it did seem to work OK in the older version we had on our DLT drive.

Ah, then if Dell sold it to you, get on their case about how much it sucks and tell them to either support it or offer an alternative.

Commvault is actually a very good piece of backup software -- certainly much better than ArcServe. I've used it, but it's been long enough ago that I couldn't begin to help without being right in front of it.

As I remember, the documentation is online with the product. It sounds to me more like he's simply not familiar with enterprise-level backup systems, as nothing about it was particularly difficult for me to learn. But enterprise-level backup systems is not the world's easiest subject (though it's far from the most difficult). It sounds to me like the documentation assumes a level of expertise he doesn't already have.

I would probably take exception to his notion of "storage policy" = "tape drive" and so on, but, again, I can't remember precisely.

At the same time, if he's got a single tape drive and a single backup server, it's probably massive overkill, and that's probably the source of confusion. Sometimes systems designed for complex implementations become more confusing with simple implementations, as it becomes difficult to understand which pieces are extraneous to your situation, and perhaps that any of them are extraneous at all.

If you have any support on it, call CommVault and get them to help you set it up. If you don't, call them anyway. You might be able to weasel a free setup out of them if you threaten to return it and buy NetBackup. (They don't know you can't return it any more.)

If all that fails, call Dell and get them to help you.

Again, though, it sounds like you got oversold by Dell. There's probably no reason to buy backup software that big if you have a single tape drive. BackupExec or (ugh) ArcServe, as Tony suggested, probably would have worked better for you.

Thanks guys. Yeah it's a single drive although Commvault comes with 5 File Agents which means I can back from 5 different machines across the network. I do have a second backup server it might be nice to back up and it's possible a third exchange server might appear soon.

I'm trying to get a lead out of a account rep but that's looking harder than it sounds. I might just ring the gold support number I have for the server instead (which was bought separately from the drive and tapes) and see what I can get. I've just got to find the number of course. It's not like they tell you what it is. It does mean not talking to someone in India which is often handy.

It's OEM, so Dell really should support it. I've probably left it too long though.

It does look powerful, but there are just things I can't seem to do and help is all done through a custom Java app, so it's pain in the proverbial to even search.