Symantec Backup Exec Training

slinuxuzer

Taking a course for this in dallas next week, wondering if anyone has taken any symantec classes in dallas or any where else that can share their experiences with me.

sprkymrk

I've taken Symantec training for Ghost, SAVCE and a couple versions of their firewalls. They make extensive use of VMWare. The classrooms are usually very up-to-date and the instructors very knowledgable. That's why it costs $2500/seat.


Seriously, my experience has been very positive.

billybob01

I have to install Symantec Backup Exec soon, no training for though just the pdfs to go by!!! And if the installation is anything like getting Ghost to work then i will become a certifide nutcase!!

Gabe7055

Backup Exec is a very good product. I been using it for years back when it was under Veritas.

It's fairly straight forward on setting up and running so you shouldn't have too many issues billybob

billybob01

We are using Veritas at the moment, but with being pushed into the deep end i am a bit nervous!!! Ghost has`nt gone well ( which is a very long story) so when i heard of another Synantec product comming through i was`nt exactly jumping for joy.

I am new to sql as well so i was wondering how you installed backup exec using sql, we use sql 2000.

slinuxuzer

Sprkymrk, thanks for your input. As for the comments on getting ghost to work I personally spent more time than I care to remember setting this up to work, I know have two universal images that will work for gx520, 260, 270, 280, D600, 610, 620, and C510. I used the step by step guide here.

http://www.vernalex.com/guides/sysprep/index.shtml

A few other issues I had were that we use Trend micro neatsuite which has a imgsetup utility that needs to be run to give each machine a unique Guid.

All in all I highly recommend this sysprep tutorial for anyone struggling with ghost. Also will be glad to help if I can.

As, for backup exec we use it, and it took a little while to setup, but the most important things you can do is make sure your tape drive's firmware is up to date, and your scsi drivers are up to date. Because these are the first things symantec or dell's tech people will want to run you through.

P.s. Backup exec 11d is a good product IMO

billybob01

The issue i have with Ghost is that i cannot get any machines to show up on the console under default machines!! We have 2 core switches and about 12 Layer 3 switches ( all the same make and model) dotted about. I have set up both core switches as per instructions from the company who installed them and the other switches have IGMP snooping on by default so i thought i would be good to go. Installed the remote client to the workstations, some installed and some didnt but not one showed up in the console!!! The ones that have the client installed dont have an icon in the system tray either. I have run out of ideas.

ITdude

I agree with Gabe 7055, Backup exec is pretty straightforward and a prety darn good prouct. We have been using it fior quite some time, too.

slinuxuzer

Today, was the first day of symantec training. I feel like I know more than I did this morning, I think the classroom was good. The instructor was ok, but I feel like there were alot of people in the class who weren't getting as much from the class as they could have. This I believe was due to the way the material was presented and not a lack of knowledge by the instructor.

Schedule

Class didn't begin until 10am this morning (start time 9am) and ended early at 4pm, the late start I can kind of understand, since alot of people had trouble locating the center (one person had to fill in for a co-worker, and didn't find out untill 6am this moring. Lunch was 90 minutes, and the instructor has informed us that friday's usually end at noon. Personally I feel like if there isn't enough material to fill at least a 35 hour week, then symantec should shorten the class and possibly reduce the price (fat chance).

Equiptment

The equiptment is good, nice quantium tape drives, each student has their own server, and students share a tape drive over a fibre network, which I didn't mind and didn't cause any issues. The only issue here and my biggest issue was that our tape drive malfuntioned today and would no longer acknowledge the media. This happened about half way through the day (tapes had previously been read, written, inventoried, and erased; all of this stopped after the malfunction. No activity could be heard from the robotic library.) The instructors solution was to write to disk.

Ok, maybe this will work, but my company shelled out 6k plus hotel and meals for a week to send us here. Figure 8k.

I rate today 7ish or 6.5, would I recommend symantec training? I will let you know at the end of the week.

sprkymrk

I also found that class usually starts late the first day and ends at noon-2PM on Fidays. I never had an early out on Mon-Thursday though and I have been to Symantec training 4 times in the last 3 years. Many times the instructor would show up an hour early and stay an hour late if one or more of the students needed additional help, either due to a specific issue they had at their jobs that was outside the curriculum, or due to their inexperience.

The instructor always makes or breaks the class though, and I was fortunate to have good ones.

(Hi Bob O. - if you're reading this).

royal

sprkymrk wrote:

The instructor always makes or breaks the class though, and I was fortunate to have good ones.

I've had a bad instructor once with a class I've had (not Symantec) and they offered me to re-take the course with a different instructor. I would hope this is the case with all training facilities. If you are unsatisfied with an instructor, you should be able to take the same exact class with a different instructor so you are properly trained which is what you paid for in the first place.

slinuxuzer

well, I will say that this is my first vendor training course (never been to any others, except college and thats not what we are talking about here; no bootcamps either) which is why I am not quick to rush the final judgement.

I setup backup exec for our company previous to this class and and pretty knowledgable with this product, but the guy thats with me is supposed to be my backup and I can see that him and the others who might have very little experience with this product are not where I would want to be after today.

All I can do is remain positive.

Other than that the hotel next door, the bradford homesuites is great, 79 a night for a two bedroom room, plasma tv, full kitchen and there are lots of restaruants and bars near by.

Plus this hotel is so close the the training center you could spit on it from here.

Will keep everyone posted.

slinuxuzer

Day two, ok day two was alot better, the tape drive was replaced and today's lecture seemed to be alot better, I guess chalk that up to a monday. Tommorrow we are staring to use vmware and backup exchange etc.

slinuxuzer

OK, today was more or less the last real day of class tomorrow we are going in and completing one lecture and one lesson. I think overall it was a pretty good experience. The lab and classroom I would rate 9.5 or ten, very good environment. Vmware servers loaded with Sql and exchange so you can get hands on with backing them up (also entire one tape drive per two students wich is a good setup for lab's and doesn't cause alot of conflict). Alot of the lab's were really good and informative.

The instructor I would rate about 7'ish, too many I'm not sure answers, and anytime there was an equiptment issue, the standard answer was to come up with a work around, thats fine but these exact same kind of issues come up reguarly in a work environment.

overal rating I would say is an 8 and would recommend this training to anyone who uses backup exec 11d.

P.s I think you will get more out of this class if you have struggled through getting your backup system working correctly at work first, or at least don't be completly clueless about the product.

Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread.