BrightStor ArcServe 11.5 Backup Job Crashed/Failed Report Manager

This is just a guess, but it appears as though the reason some tape slots were greyed is b/c the tapes were "expired".  I reformatted the tapes and all seems fine there.

You probably shouldn't reformat tapes that are expired or are still within the retention period, but rather remove them and replace them with tapes that can be overwritten or are new. Check the backup and archiving policy of your company for details. Normal backups use a GFS (Grandfather, Father, Son) scheme. The "Son" is the daily backup, which to save time and tapes is usually differential. These tapes can usually be overwritten after one or two weeks. The Father is the weekly tape, usually done on Friday, and these tapes are full backups and kept for a month. These tapes would be have to be removed from the library after every backup if you don't have enough slots for all weekly tapes of a month. The grandfather tapes are also full backups, done at the end of the month. These are kept indefinitely and are removed after the backup. These also need to be stored off site in safes, banks are a good place. It is also recommended to keep the Father tapes off site. As tapes don't last indefinitely they should be retired from active backup when they reach their life's end. How often tapes can be recycled (written to, then erased is one cycle) is dependent on the tape technology used. DDS tapes don't last long, I wouldn't use them for more than 20 cycles (They should last longer, but a working backup is critical for a company and you shouldn't take chances). With DLT's 50 cycles is my max. This will also depend on the environment and climate. Usually you can plan to use a tape that has reached it's retirement age to as a grandfather.

But of course all this should be defined by your company and how long they need to be able to restore old data. It also depends on the country your in and it's laws. Some countries require the company to keep it's records for years, and such backups will have to archived for that time (this doesn't mean all data must be kept for that time, but mainly accounting data etc., so it may be appropriate to backup that sensitive data separately with it's own archiving plan).

Removing the tapes wasn't an option being this office is located 1000 miles away and there isn't anyone capable of removing them from the library.  There didn't appear to be any other option than to reformat them.

Just call them and tell them how to remove the tape. You can probably eject it or make it go into the mailing slot yourself. Where I used to work we had distributed office with computer illiterate there. Each office had at least one server, and we just got the secretaries at the locations to replace the tapes when we told them to. The tapes had labels on them to make it easy for them to sort them.

I recommend installing some updates.
http://supportconnectw.ca.com/public/storage/downloads/nt/115/basbr115-solpatch.asp
QO82963        ZIP        10.3 MB        10/06/06        NT -DEVICE SUPPORT UDPATE 7 A
QO84016        ZIP        250 KB        11/14/06        NT -BACKUP JOB ABORTS SAVING DR INFO ON MSCS
QO84317        ZIP        183 KB        11/29/06        NT -HOT BACKUP CAUSES VLDB TO BECOME CORRUPT

The versions are completely up to date

does anyone know how to get the reports to generate?

Are you able to generate any reports from any ARCserve server, like perhaps your local ARCserve server?

No.  but perhaps that's b/c it's never been configured?  don't even know whether it needs to be configured.  i'd like to receive email notifications when backups complete/fail/crash.

I've looked at the above document as well as reading the Administrator Guide, but I still don't have a clear picture on how to set up the Alerts.  The user guide states to select the type of alerts to receive:
■ Job Completed Successfully
■ Job Incomplete
■ Job Canceled by User
■ Job Failed
■ Virus Detected
■ Customized Event

But looking through the windows, I do not see any of the above.  Within the alert manager it appears as though it has been configured (SMTP & MS Exchange) but the configured receiver is not receiving the alerts.

There are two parts to Alert, the Alert Manager and alert configuration in the job.

After you have alert manager setup then you have to configure Alert from within the job and that is where you select Job Failed etc.

dovidmichel,

i have configured both areas.  and when sending a test message, i do not receive it, yet it appears in the event window

Well the test message is strictly dealing with the Alert Manager and has nothing to do with the job configuration. So before a job can send an alert, this has to be taken care of.

Here are some things to ck:
Install Exchange client/Outlook on the ARCserve server.
If in the Alert Manager it was setup under Default configure the Exchange option under BrightStor AB also.
Impersonation account has to match real account exactly, case sensitive.
By the way the impersonation account is not a recipient, it is an admin account Alert needs to connect into Exchange to send the e-mail to the recipients. The recipients are selected by right clicking on
Configuration/BrightStor AB/Microsoft Exchange and selecting New.

dovidmichel -

all of this is configured:


Here are some things to ck:
Install Exchange client/Outlook on the ARCserve server.
If in the Alert Manager it was setup under Default configure the Exchange option under BrightStor AB also.
Impersonation account has to match real account exactly, case sensitive.
By the way the impersonation account is not a recipient, it is an admin account Alert needs to connect into Exchange to send the e-mail to the recipients. The recipients are selected by right clicking on
Configuration/BrightStor AB/Microsoft Exchange and selecting New.

perhaps debug will help.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE ComputerAssociates Alert CurrentVersion Service

Highlight Service, then select Edit Add Key,
Key Name: Trace   Class: (leave blank), click OK

Highlight Trace, then select Edit Add Value,
Value Name: (pick from the list below),  Data Type: REG_DWORD,
click OK, Data: 1 = On, 0 = Off

Application to Trace          Value Name      Ouput File
MS Exchange                   ExchPstr        AlrtExch.log

I've checked the registry & the following value already exists:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE\ ComputerAssociates \Alert \CurrentVersion\ Service\ ExchPstr = Data Type: REG_DWORD,  Data: 0 = Off

Set it to 1 to enable debug.

ok.  and where do I go from there?

Oh the idea is to enable debug and then hopefully the alert log will have some details that will help find out what is wrong.

One question to answer is if the alert is being sent and failing at the Exchange end or if Alert if failing to send it.

Here are a couple of more things from the CA support site.
Possible errors and solutions:Problem: Failed to send E-Mail (-2147221219)
Answer: Make sure the Exchange server is running and that the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant and the Information Store services are running on the Exchange server.
Problem: Failed to send E-Mail (-2147221231)
Answer: This error occurs, and Alert fails to send e-mail to Exchange. The alrtexch.log had these errors: "Error setting up the Exchange Server (80040700)", and "Cannot open the default message store (80040111)".
The user had an Exchange Display Name-"BackupAdmin" in this case- that was different than its alias. Creating a new user with both Display Name and alias the same corrected the problem.
Since the alert service must login to an Exchange mailbox in order to send e-mail, make sure the mailbox account matches the impersonation account. (Check this under MS Exchange Settings)
This error can also occur if the mailbox is hidden. Hidden mailboxes are not currently supported by Alert.
 
What version of Exchange is it?

Exchange 2003

I was reading this ->
This error can also occur if the mailbox is hidden. Hidden mailboxes are not currently supported by Alert.

The "impersonation" acct is a hidden mailbox, is the above referring to this? If so, that could be the problem

Nevermind on the above info concerning the mailbox being hidden.  It's not hidden.  The alias & the displayname are exactly the same. and now when I send the test messages, the popup says it's been sent but nothing is appearing in the Alert Event Log

Alerts are still not being generated.  The test alerts send fine, but the nightly alerts for fail, incomplete, etc are not.  Everything appears to be configured correctly but not working.  Any input?

OK, test alerts work, alerts from backups don't work and there is nothing in the log. Sounds like a configuration problem.

Here are the steps
At the Global Options Alert tab
Under Event select the events you want an alert to be sent for.
If you want a copy of the job log e-mailed then check the box, Attach Job Log.
Click on Configure
In the Methods & Recipients Configuration window click New
Enter a Configuration Name
Right click on the alert method (such as e-mail) and select Add Recipient
Fill in all the details for that method.
Click OK
Under Methods & Recipients drop down list select the Methods & Recipients configuration you just set up.
Click OK
resubmit the job.  

dovidmichel,

all of the above is configured

Check the Alert Notification Server and CA BrightStor ARCserve Message Engine services to make sure they logon as System Account.
Check the shares for
C:\Program Files\CA\SharedComponents\Alert - Everyone Full Control
C:\Program Files\CA\BrightStor ARCserve Backup - Administrators, Backup Operators, owner full control, System and Users special Permissions.

Uninstalled/reinstalled software. alerts still not functioning.
thanks for the help

After all that and alerts are still not functioning. Well thanks for the points even though I did not get it working.

If you want to continue working on it, from within the Alert Manager try sending a test broadcast. This is just to see if it will work and Alert has the ability to process any type of event. Oh and by the way I don't think Alert is removed by the uninstall. That is because it is used by both ARCserve and the eTrust products, and in fact I think it is the eTrust group that develops and maintains Alert.