Desperately waiting for patch 2, I should have waited before

[RMullis]

I have had many issues with this new version of Veeam. I have been using Veeam for a couple of years and absolutely love it so I was extremely excited for version 7. However I have been burned in the past with software releases so I chose to wait until the patch 1 was released figuring I would be safe. Well, I was dead wrong. I have contacted support with multiple issues which some have been resolved. Unfortunately I cannot use Parallel Processing as it floods our DS3 (45mbps) Wan connection even though I have throttling set at 18mbps (Case#00462183). One of the Tech Support agents stated since I am backing up across the WAN I should be using Active Fulls, which I stated, I thought that created a whole new backup requiring a complete recopy and he said no it works just like a synthetic but has better checksums. So I went against my better judgement and reconfigured as the "expert" suggested and I ended up needing to reseed all of my remote datacenter's data (+12TB), because it started copying every bit with no CBT. Since I cannot use the same seed/backup I created for the seeding of the backups I also had to recreate the replica seeds since they have to be a single server backup file, because it can’t see the individual server in a backup job. We had many issues trying to get Backup Copy Job working so i had to continue to use regular backup across the WAN. But that is not the big issue. The real problem is the restoration of any large server from tape. If I restore a large server (800GB+) I get either ‘Script Timeout Error” or “An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host”.

Ed has tried his best to assist me but unfortunately I have to wait for patch 2, since that has all of the fixes I need….. and this may be another 2-3 weeks. I have been without a backup to tape since the end of September. So I am forced to install Symantec Backup Exec, since I cannot trust the tapes to be able to restore the data. BTW any restore of backups under 700GB seem to be fine and restoring from disk is also fine.

The reason I am writing this is so anyone looking to move to Veeam 7, PLEASE hold off until after patch 2 is released. Don't be discouraged by the above info, there were a lot of changes made to Veeam for version 7 and it is still very exciting. Once these bugs are worked out you will find it is, IMHO, the best product on the market.

If you need any patch 2 testers please let me know.

Rick

[Gostev]

Sorry to hear about your issues with the new functionality... we always have hot fixes for most of the known issues available, the fact that there is no hot fixes for these ones only means that there are very few users affected.

You did not do anything wrong going with Patch #1, this was truly the right time to upgrade. We estimate that over 25% of our users have already upgraded to v7, and as you can see there is no flood of complaints on these forums. Sounds like just some bad luck with a few environment-specific issues around new v7 functionality.

But, the good news is that the update is almost ready.

Again, sorry for this inconvenience.

[RMullis]

Just an update since R2 upgrade on Case#00462183;

I am still getting this error:
Failed to restore file Exchange Servers Backup2013-11-14T180137.vbk Error: Agent fatal error during script execution

Unfortunately this situation is not resolved.

[RMullis]

Just an update:

Quite some time ago I found restoring a large file from tape would error out with only 9G remaining. These files were usually larger then 1TB so I had to wait for hours before I knew. After many support contacts within Veeam, I was finally escalated to tier 3 but due to their location (somewhere in Central European Timezone) there were a couple extremely early and long days.....BUT, we finally got it. As is turns out there were 2 issues. One was a CRC error within Veeam, fixed by new Veeam Agent that will go into all future releases and upgrades. The other is a EOM (End Of Media) signal not being received from the tape library. Veeam support even tested with their own TS3100 and their library sends the signal, neither of our 2 units do. Veeam & IBM have been working together with me to resolve, which is quite rare to have software & hardware from 2 different companies do this. IBM will look into why our units do not send the EOM signal, it may be firmware or hardware....we will see. Meanwhile Veeam built a EOM finalization sequence into their Agent so this will no longer be an issue, even though this is the first tape library / drive that have come across with this issue, they fear others may have the same issue without realizing until they need to restore data.

It's a shame it took 2 months to get resolved, but I am very happy that everything is working fantastic....thanks Veeam (special thanks to Cody & Rustam).

Rick

[Gostev]

Thanks for the update Rick, glad it is working fine now. I've been following your case. I am sure it would not have taken 2 months if not an unexpected hardware problem. What made it even more confusing for us, is the fact that we could not reproduce this issue on the exact same hardware in-house, so we've wasted much time chasing a wild goose so to speak, looking for the problem elsewhere

[RMullis]

Yes, it was quite confusing. I'm still hoping to hear back from IBM to see if the missing EOM signal is due to a firmware issue or if this is by design. Speaking with Rustam it sounds like they were testing on a TS3100 from Dell, so I wonder if Dell uses different firmware or if it is designed by IBM for Dell. Anyway we will see. At least you guys got it working....

I will let you know if it is firmware and what versions I have so if you see this again before the patch is deployed you will at least know what to look for. Keep in mind we had this same issue at 2 datacenters, one using TS3100 & the other using TS3200 but both running same firmware.

Thanks again,
Rick