Best practices for Backup Exec 12.5 Central Admin Server Option

Best practices include tips and recommendations to help you use Backup Exec 12.5 Central Admin Server Option (CASO) effectively. For more information about CASO, see the Backup Exec for Windows Servers Administrator’s Guide.

The following best practices help you use the Central Admin Server Option effectively:

• Upgrade the central administration server first when you do a rolling upgrade.

• Cancel any jobs that run on the managed media servers before you perform the upgrade. Then pause and upgrade the managed media servers as soon as possible.

• Avoid mixed versions of Backup Exec on the central administration server and the managed media servers.

• Create and use an encryption key on a managed media server that runs the restore job. To restore encrypted data from a central administration server, use the pass phrase at the central administration server that you used on the managed media server. Without the same pass phrase, the encrypted data selections do not appear in the Restore Job Properties pane.

• Perform test run jobs only at a local media server. You cannot dispatch jobs from a central administration server to a remote managed media server.

The following best practices help you effectively optimize your network bandwidth:

• Configure each managed media server to use distributed catalogs.

• Keep the catalogs on the managed media server (distributed). If there is a persistent network connection between the central administration server and the managed media server, catalog location does not matter. You can browse the catalog and perform restore operations from both servers. You do not need a persistent network connection to the central administration server for jobs that run locally on the managed media server.

• Use the Backup Exec Copy Job feature to centrally create jobs at the central administration server.

• Use the IDR preparation wizard on the central administration server to create recovery media for any managed media server or central administration server.

• Reduce the frequency of job status updates that are sent from the managed media server to the central administration server.

• Increase the amount of time that Backup Exec waits before it changes the media server’s status if the media server becomes unresponsive.

• Use the Communications Settings tab on a managed media server's Media Server Properties dialog box to further optimize network bandwidth.

• Enable communications between the MMS and the CAS before you delete a managed media server from a CASO configuration.

• Contact Symantec Technical Support for assistance before you reconfigure CASO. Reconfiguration errors can require a recovery of the managed media servers, the central administration server, or the entire CASO environment.