Trial of ABR11 Workstation - issues / observations / suggestions?
Hi,
I've just started to assess ABR11 Workstation as a possible backup solution for one of my clients.
Here is the environment:
4 Win 7 x64 Professional PCs
Peer-to-peer network (workgroup)
Norton Internet Security 2012 on all four PCs, with the network Trust Level set to "Shared" (works fine for sharing files)
USB 3.0 external hard drive on one of the PCs
Here's the setup I used:
[Note: Feel free to let me know if there's a better / more correct setup]
I have installed the trial on all four PCs. I have set up the USB drive on PC 1 to be shared with "Everyone". I have set up Standard user accounts on PC 1, mirroring the account usernames / passwords on PCs 2 to 4. On their respective PCs, each user has an Administrator account. (I realise this isn't the best approach for security, but this is how they like it, and I only assist them "as needed" presently)
I created a GFS scheme backup plan yesterday (Sunday) on each PC using the credentials of the local Administrator account for each user, and created a Personal Vault on each PC - on PC 1 it was the local USB drive, and on PCs 2 to 4 it's pointing to the network share for the USB drive. This is the vault used in the backup plan.
Here are the issues I've noted:
[Note: All of these, except Issue # 5, are relatively minor]
1. I cannot create a Personal Vault with a mapped drive to the network share (USB drive) on PCs 2 to 4. The drive doesn't appear at all in the Acronis location browser when setting up the vault, and manually putting in the drive letter produces an error code with a link to a KB article that just says the solution will appear there when it's available. I've logged this issue with support (which, BTW, I logged as minor but the support rep apparently made it "critical"), but I wasted about 1.5 hours on chat with the tech, and his suggestions were very general in nature - they didn't relate directly to the issue, and the solution provided was assuming I could not access the share at all (which I can via UNC).
Question: Why can't mapped drives be used for this?
2. Connecting to the network share via the Acronis browser when selecting the destination of the backup plan, it said it was unable to authenticate PCs 2 to 4, even though they had the same username / password set up on PC 1. I had to manually specify the login credentials as: [PC 1]\[Username] (using the respective PC's username) and password. After doing this, it would generally take a minute or two to connect, but it finally did establish the destination for the vault.
Question 1: Why doesn't it work like Windows network shares work, and pass through the credentials?
Question 2: Why did it take so long after supplying the credentials to finally connect?
3. After completing a "Backup Now" job on PCs 2 to 4, a taskbar icon remained, stating that the task "Simple backup" was 99% complete. The job was set to do a verification after the backup. Checking the current activities on each of those PCs, the backup job had already completed and something seemed to be "idle" (sorry, I didn't note what it was). It seems the taskbar icon remained for no reason. This did not happen on PC 1, which connects to the Personal Vault locally. I haven't verified if the same result occurs after the new GFS backup plan was implemented.
Question: This seems like a bug, or a misconfiguration with how I've set things up. If the former, is there a fix or how do I report it to get it fixed? If the later, what do I need to change?
4. After creating the GFS backup plan on all 4 PCs and saving it, the "Next run time" would randomly be either the weekly or monthly backup date / time. I had to re-open and re-save the plan several times before I saw the correct (daily) date / time. I confirmed all 4 PCs had the daily backup showing for the next run time before assuming it was set up correctly. Occassionally, when checking the "Details" of the backup plan, I noticed it also said it was a "simple" backup (not GFS). Re-saving it resolved that as well.
Question: This seems like a bug. Is there a fix or how do I report it to get it fixed?
5. I have all four PCs set to send out e-mail notifications for any/all events (for the time being). I got two e-mails after a successful daily backup from the new GFS plan for PC 1 and 3. No notification for PCs 2 and 4. My first assumption was I had mistakenly set it to "PM" instead of "AM", but checking the backup plan on both PCs, the next run time listed it correctly as "AM". Checking the events / activities on both PCs showed no activity had occurred when it was supposed to backup. The next run time on both PCs also correctly showed the next daily backup time. (which it also did when I checked it after creating the GFS plan)
I'm going with the assumption that there is / was a problem with the scheduler on both PCs. All PCs have been restarted, and I'll be monitoring for the next daily backup to run. If not, I'll follow the advice here: http://kb.acronis.com/content/1518 It would be helpful to know if that's the latest scheduler build which is linked for download.
If there are any suggestions for how I can set things up better so there are less issues (noted above), please do let me know. Also, another general question: Do I need a separate boot media for emergency recovery for each PC, or will one be sufficient? I partially tested this by booting PC 2 with the media created on PC 1, and that seemed to work OK. My concern is when creating the default media on PC 1, it added the MAC address in the networking section. I'm not sure if this will affect things? Ideally, I'd like to be able to restore off the network share, if need be.
General observations:
1. Other than the missed scheduled backups on PC 2 and 4 (which apparently is a known issue and I'm hoping will be resolved shortly), the issues I've encountered so far are relatively minor. Reading the forums, you'd assume that QA on these products is non-existent for the most part, but I prefer to find that out first-hand for a product that's known as one of the leaders in backup / recovery. It's hard to see just how many people the issues noted in the forums are affecting, when no doubt the vast majority of users are not posting when things are running well.
2. It seems to me that the trial version is much too limited, both in terms of time to test it out and the support offered for it. In a business environment, even one as simple as the one I have set up, I'd be surprised if I got things working properly within 15 days. (much less an environment which was more complex) On top of that, these kinds of setups are best done after hours, to avoid disrupting the staff / client too much. Unfortunately, support is only offered 12 x 5 for the trial, and only by chat or e-mail. When you're trying to win over customers to this product (especially a product that caters to people knowledgeable in the IT field), these kinds of limitations really shouldn't exist. I can hardly be expected to properly evaluate this software and recommend it to my client in such a short time, with no support during the hours when I'm actually on-site setting it up. At the very least, an *option* to get phone support 24 x 7 should exist. Chat / e-mails are very inefficient for the most part. On top of that, the quality of the support reps should be top-notch for business products. I got the impression that the rep I was dealing with (via chat) today only generally understood my issue, and when I asked specific questions, couldn't give me clear answers.
3. On a related note to # 2 above, much of the Acronis website is outdated... there are many pages I could find on older products / services / partner programs which I assume are either no longer relevant, or haven't been updated to include the latest offering (ABR11, for example). Some KB articles refer to outdated fixes / updates. This isn't a plus for prospective customers -- if the website is so outdated, how does that translate to things overall?
Thanks for taking the time to read through this, and I look forward to solutions to my issues and perhaps having my observations addressed in some way.
Best Wishes,
Kurosh
Thanks for your answers.
I somewhat understand your answer to Issue #1, but not completely ... why is converting to UNC path not supported? Why can't the user credentials be passed on "as is", giving the option to change them if needed? I'm not clear at this point what user rights are needed for successful operations - it does seem to be backing up PCs 2 to 4 (with the exception of the scheduled backup issue) to the network share, so I'm not sure if my setup is correct or I need to adjust the user rights.
I've submitted the other issues (3 - 5) to support, so I'll see what they say. I opted for e-mail support since I'm not on-site and the chat experience wasn't the best last time... Issue # 5 is of a higher priority (I set it that way when submitting), so hopefully that will be resolved shortly.
I'll test out the linux-based bootable media I created on PC 1 soon, when I next go on-site. It did boot PC 2, but I didn't test restoring files yet.
I believe I've resolved Issue # 5, after looking at the information gathered from PC 2 and 4 using the Acronis System Report tool.
This appeared in the schedreport log for both PCs:
LastError: 1326 (0x52E) - Logging on with the specified credentials is impossible, probably because the account does not exist or the password is invalid.
I had created the backup plan on PC 1, exported the plan, and imported the plan on PCs 2 - 4. Apparently I had overlooked that the credentials for the plan were still the same as on PC 1. This account does exist on PC 3, which accounts for why the backup still ran (assuming I haven't changed the credentials there either). I corrected that, so now I just have to wait and see if the next daily backup runs on these two PCs.
Strange thing is that I didn't see any error about the backup not being able to run in the ABR11 event / activity logs? Consequently, no error was e-mailed to me either. According to this, an error should have been generated:
About #5 - http://kb.acronis.com/content/16046 is about ABR10. In some cases such articles apply to ABR11 as well, even if it's not said explicitly, in some cases not. Maybe it's a bug too - task failed because of wrong credentials should leave some trace in log.
why is converting to UNC path not supported?
As I said, it's not implemented. Maybe not yet.
The good news is that the backups have been working as expected - daily backups are succeeding on all 4 PCs.
No word yet from support on Issues # 3 or #4, but they seem to be minor, so no rush.
Issue # 6:
I am noticing that PCs 2 to 4 are taking relatively a lot longer than PC 1 to do their daily backup. The actual backup time is consistent between all 4 PCs (about 2 - 4 mins.), but there seem to be relatively long gaps (2 - 3 mins.) between steps in the backup job. I'm guessing this is related to Issue # 2, Question 2 and perhaps Issue # 3... most likely it's taking a long time to connect to the backup location (network share) for some reason, and this is happening repeatedly during the backup process (backup, cleanup, validation).
Example from PC 1:
1 Information 4/05/12 12:15:21 AM Command 'Backing up' is running.
2 Information 4/05/12 12:15:27 AM Analyzing partition 'C:'...
Only 6 seconds to move from Step 1 to 2
Example from PC 2:
1 Information 05/04/2012 12:45:03 AM Command 'Backing up' is running.
2 Information 05/04/2012 12:47:36 AM Analyzing partition 'C:'...
2.5 mins (153 seconds) to move from Step 1 to 2
Looks like I'll have to log another issue with support to figure this one out.
I must say, I'm not overly impressed with the level of support provided thus far. Granted, this is a trial product, but as mentioned in my first posting, I think it's Acronis' potential customers who should be seeing the best of what Acronis has to offer.
I've received two responses from support.
Issue # 1 was deleted* from my support cases, with this response:
"We regret to inform you that your support program for Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 Workstation Trial (English) has expired on 2011-09-29. In order to enjoy 24/7 customer support from Acronis, you are requested to upgrade to a full version of the product."
As I mentioned earlier, 15 days is really not enough time to properly evaluate the software. Now, only 5 days into my trial, I'm told my support expired back in September? I'm very curious to know how this happened.
Issues # 3 and 4 were merged into one case, but are actually two different issues. I'm still awaiting a response on them.
Issue # 5 was closed, which in a sense is fine, but the answer for why there was no error reported in the logs seemed like they weren't willing to acknowledge a flaw in the way this works:
"Kurosh, the reason why you didn't saw any error about the backup not being able to run in the ABR11 event / activity logs can possibly because, the actual tasks never ran. Report only gets generated if the tasks starts and fails to complete. In your case, it might have stayed idle.
You were able to see the report in scheduler report logs because scheduler task flags every activity that take place. Hence, if any event occurs, it is recorded in Acronis scheduler Report and hence you were able to see the error."
Seems to me that this is a bug, but no mention was made that this would be forwarded to the development team for a fix or improvement of the product. After all, the task not running per schedule is indeed a fault, and the user should be notified.
I sent a message to managers@acronis.com about my concerns with support thus far, and that ended up opening a new support case. I can only hope that this issue will actually be addressed by managers.
* [EDIT: It was actually merged with a closed case, not deleted - same end result, though]
I sent a message to managers@acronis.com about my concerns with support thus far, and that ended up opening a new support case.
You might have sent it to some other address - letters to managers@ don't trigger autoreply.
I'm sure I sent it to managers@acronis.com. I forwarded the e-mail received about one of the cases, so I'm not sure if that triggered the autoreply and creation of a new case, as it had the same subject.
I appreciate the assistance Anton has offered so far (after PMing him) to try to get things resolved.
I have yet to hear from any managers on what's going on or the timeline for resolution. Support did call me yesterday to set up a time to remotely connect and have a look at Issue #3. We were going to look at it today, but it's a holiday in Canada, so my client is closed today. It had to be rescheduled for Tuesday (Monday wasn't available apparently). For some reason, all my other logged issues were either merged into this same case, or another that was recently closed. I'm addressing that with Anton now.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking; approx. 9 days left in the trial.
Latest update:
Issue # 3: Support connected remotely to PC 4 on Tuesday which was still exhibiting the problem (PCs 2 and 3 no longer do / did, which might have to do with the fact that they are all accessing the same network share and PC 4 is the last one to do daily backups), and restarted a couple of Acronis services. The icon went away, but I suspect this is a temporary fix. I have to follow up with my client to see if the issue reoccurs. Support suggested that if it does, to re-install the Acronis Tray Monitor component - which will be the next step.
Issue # 4: Support requested screenshots and Acronis Info for this issue, which I've provided on Tuesday. Waiting to hear back from them. Likely this is a bug which needs to be resolved - another forum member posted seeing the same thing with the GFS backup scheme, although they have a more complex setup.
Issue # 6: Support observed that it takes a long time for ABR11 to access the network share, and suggested this is "normal":
"Also when we edited the task it took about 2 minutes to load the location of the backup as it was a network share on a different machine. As discussed this is by product design as it require a little more time to access the network location from Acronis. However I will be forwarding the feedback to our concerned department to improve our product. For information please refer to the KB article below:
Acronis Backup & Recovery 11: Preparing Machines for Remote Installation
http://kb.acronis.com/content/21545"
They recommended to turn off UAC, per the above KB.
Question: Is this infact "normal", or is there an access issue which needs to be addressed? I'm not keen on turning off UAC - ABR11 shouldn't require that to access a network share.
Referring to article 21545 in context of general network access is a a bit weird. It mentions UAC specifically for non-domain environment for Vista and later OSse, if built-in administrator account is not used (and in this case remote login with full administrator privileges is impossible)
Did they recommend to turn UAC off on the machine where the share is located or on the machine that tries to access it?