Monday, March 26, 2007

The backup server which I configured has been using a trial version of Symantec veritas backup exec 10d so I had to get it licensed.
I called the reseller and for a quote according to our requirement i.e. 1 x main backup software; 5 x remote agents; 1 x tape library software (autoloader).
Nigel Garett's outlook still has not been behaving itself and keeps on crashing. I had alook at it and due to irregular pattern for failure its actually difficult to diagnose the real route cause of it.
Meanwhile, I had to build a new demo machine for Stuart Love. He wanted this new demo laptop for future installations since he reckoned Demo2 was absolutely cluttered and would not be able to cope anymore further installations. Apart from standard server on his laptop he requires a demo tool kit called Business Objects which has very high prerequisites. I demands a web server and a database server for its complete functionality and is not very straight forward to install.
I have finished building the server on the laptop with all latest updates and anti virus console as of yet. Even installed Sequel server 2000 standard edition with SP 3a.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

I have been working on setting the tape library for carrying out the backups. I have eventually been able to resolve all the issues and getting it started.
After getting it replaced I had to decide which backup software to use on it for backups. Ended up installing the Veritas 10d and refering to the manuals to get my hold onto how to configure it.

Firstly I had to install the remote agents to the machine we wanted to back up. The remote could be pushed out using the add remove tool in the control panel. Select the Veritas software and click change. Now go through the wizard to do push out the remote agents to the required servers and desktops.

Second step is to create the device pools. It is a group of storage devices that can be targetted for backups. If you run the veritas software for backups and select the device tab you would find the tape library beeing used. If you load the tapes into the autoloader they would all be monitored in the device tab. Initially they don't have any name assigned to them so by right clicking onto each of them you have to first catalog(name) them appropriately.

Ater that, thirdly I had to create a media set. A media set is logical group of storage media for which you can specify how long data will be appended or over write protected. After creating media sets we can target backup jobs to it.

Backup jobs could then be created individually or by using policies. Policies contains the data selections we specify for backups and all the details like what when and how it will be backed up.
it can reflect the back strategy created and simply managing the large number of backup jobs. Backup jobs actually allow to associate a policy with a selection list.

Eventually after all I allows to monitor the running and scheduled back up jobs.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Ryan and Jay had concerns with having to work again on the same corrupted hard drive though it has been fixed now. To convince them I had to run some diagnostic tools which writes and reads of the disk.
The dell diagnostics CD when used to boot the system uses a Windows 98 PXE and downloads all the drivers and enters a diagnostic utility. The custom tab can be used to test the hard drive comprehensively.

Friday, March 09, 2007

We have a mission critical laptop called DEMO which is used to host all our application software's to the prospective clients. Due to fact that they all use different versions and configurations sometimes they clash and give blue screens of error. With the amount of services running on it it is next to impossible to analyse or diagnose the cause of the problem.
So just to be on the safe side because we can not afford to loose this machine it was advised to the consultant who the machine belongs to get it backed up.
The problem is that the machine has Windows Server 2003 on it and backing up windows has never been easy especially with this much amount of data on it.
I used Acronis Server Image 2003 to back it up across the network. But that was not the end of it. I was told that people in the past have managed to backup but in the last four years no body has been ever able to restore it. That means I now had to test restore it.
Now there are few restrictions when you restore a machine. I had to analyse that before going ahead but eventually I was able to restore it back onto another machine.

From yesterday as far as Dell Server 2003 is concerned using Winternals ERD Commander I could get all the data off the corrupted hard drive by putting that hard drive as secondary onto another system and just copied onto the hard drive of that system. But what happened eventually was that now I could not boot off that hard drive and hence not retrieve the server data files. I had to repair the Windows XP which already existed on the hard drive and then boot off that and access server files. It all worked well but to restore the Dell Server back we needed to get the 120GB corrupted hard drive right. So to achieve that we tried wipping off the hard drive using tool called DiskWipe.
After that I used the reinstallation CD for Dell server 2003 which comes along with the system to format the drive and do a fresh install of Windows Server 2003. the hard drive seemed to be working fine now. Next job would be to migrate the files recovered using ERD back to this reinstalled hard drive for doing that I had to dual boot the system using both the hard drives and then successfully migrated the stuff off it.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Dell engineer has replaced the Autoloader but as far as making backup's is concerned that is still got to be tested. But at the moment we have made sure that the Autoloader works fine in terms of loading and unloading tapes to the tape drive.
Next step would have been to set up the Veritas software to do backup's but one of the mission critical servers broke down and we had to look at that as priority1.
This is Dell Server 2003 which is very crucial box as used to support one of the major clients. It failed to reboot. Martin identified the problem trying to connect to it remotely. When he couldn't he asked us to have a look at it. The system did not boot up and kept coming with the message Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to reboot and the problem continued.
We first tried booting of the utility partition and ran the diagnostics. It came with errors which seemed like those for the hard drive. Then after running the custom test for hard drive it was evident that it is the hard drive failure.
First attempt was to fix it. I first used Bart's PXE to fix the hard drive partition but not to much help. Then went on to using Knoppix which is recovery tool with Linux on a CD. The system boots of the CD and is said to be capable of fixing most of the problems though not in this case. Thought of why not swap the hard drive with another machine just to make sure that it is the hard drive and nothing else than that. Put the hard drive onto another PC and same problem existed.
Last option was to try and get as much data as possible off it onto another location.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

After several attempts and looking at all possible issues we have been struggling to get Autoloader Tape Drive up and working. We have a Dell Gold Support for it and hence logged a call with Dell yesterday.
Discussed the whole issue with dell support. The problem seemed to be much more serious than intended. He asked me to open up the top lid of the autoloader. On opening I found that one the tapes was stuck in the tape drive and failed to eject. Thre was nothing that he could do and ordered a replacement of tape drive. Now we are expecting a Dell installation engineer to come and replace the faulty tape drive.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

I have installed and configured the Varitas tape drive backup software.
We had a priority 1 call to set up Tom Preston's email account to redirect all emails to his google mail account since he had left the company and had requested for accessing his emails for couple of weeks.
In outlook 2003, select Rules and Alerts in Tools tab. Using this I could redirect all his emails to his googlemail account and also to Tony Knight, who's Tom's manager so that he is aware what all is being forwarded to him.
Matt Brown in Australia needed some software's urgently. We couldn't allow him to copy it across the network because that may slow down the pipe. I copied it onto the web server folder for for Australia and Matt could install it across the internet using FTP site address.
Craig's laptop desktop rotated at 90 degrees left by its own. He called us to resolve it. Generally it is under desktop properties to configure it but unfortunately it was not there. I had to find out the shortcut (keyboard) to resolve it................Ctrl+Del+Arrow keys allow you to change the angles of your desktop (only in case of Dell's).

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Working on setting up the PowerVault 122T LTO2 Autoloader for backup's. I faced quite afew problems. First I had to install a SCSI card in the server. Upgraded the drivers for it and then from dell website downloaded the drivers for autoloader and tape drive within it. the machine has detected the hardware change but can't get the autoloader up and working. Autoloader requires a Backup software for managing backup's so installed Varitas backup solution for the same.
Now that needs configuring.