How to Learn Veritas?

[Sam'l Bassett]

Danny Howard wrote:

>So, I have inherited something Ugly.
>
>It is a Veritas Backup Exec system running on a Windows box.
>  
>

    (Expletive delted) Windows (Expletive deleted) -- which is not 
helpful, I know.

    Does the company you are working for have a support agreement with 
Veritas?

>I have half a dozen hosts, I think, with some sort of backup failures.
>
>One of the jobs that has many failures has a box I can expand to list
>errors.  It highlights two lines that start with the string "Backup -"
>but it lists half a dozen cryptic errors.  Most are of the form "Unable
>to attach to foo.." but a few are "Unable to attach to C:."
>  
>

    Do you have a copy of the Fine Manual?  Paper or electronic?  Are 
there lists of Error codes?

    Veritas may have an on-line Knowledge Base that can help.  (I work 
for NetApp, and we certainly do.)

>I admin by going through Windows TS on my Windows laptop.  My primary
>workstation is FreeBSD. :)
>
>Just talking to the Backup Exec gives me a headache.
>
>The guy who used to work here gave me a quick tour of how things are
>done, explaining that yeah, a lot of the time, say, the password to log
>in to a Windows remote host doesn't work, or the backup agent needs to
>be rebooted, or the backup system needs to be rebooted.
>
>I've only ever been the junior admin to other Veritas gurus.
>
>So ... what does anyone suggest?  Or whatever input:
>
>If I want to learn the system, where's the best spot to jump in?  What's
>the best book to read?
>  
>

    Check with Veritas if they have courses available for SAs.

>Or ...
>
>Is a more Windows-friendly non-SA (Sr. NOC tech, or Tech Support)
>perhaps better qualified?  I can try to hand this off to someone who
>might be better capable of earning a clue.
>
>Or ...
>
>Hire a consultant to do a system audit / overhaul / give us
>documentation for day-to-day administration?
>  
>

    In the long run, this might be a VERY good idea -- if the consultant 
can map things out, and knows what you need to study and where to get 
it, it can be a whole lot faster and easier than trying to figure it out 
from scratch. 


Sam Bassett

(As a responsible computer professional, I cannot, in good conscience,
recommend any Microsoft software product to anyone for any reason
other than personal amusement.)