Client Notification - You have not been backed up since . . .

[dmgaddy]

How are you handling the Client Notification alert? Specifically the "You have not been backed up since Tue, Nov 06, 2007. Contact your backup administrator for more info."

 

I really need to stay ahead of these alerts to avoid another tense moment having to explain why this server was not being backed up. What do you do to avoid this situation?

 

I am at the point of creating a paper checklist and going through the backup report weekly if that's what it takes.

 

Your suggestions?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

David G.

[Mayoff]

Your question is unclear, maybe I am missing something.

 

The best way to avoid the notification is to backup the computer. If you don't want to see the alert, you can turn off the alert option within the client control panel.

[dmgaddy]

The point is not to avoid to alert but to know ahead of time when a backup has failed for any reason. I have too much going on to spend a lot of time studying the Backup Report. I'm searching for another way to know when a backup was missed.

 

We have 16 servers 30 desktops and several laptops protected by Retrospect and I'm finding it difficult to keep up with status of all the machines.

[rhwalker]

David,

 

You don't indicate which platform (Mac, Windows) you are using for Retrospect. The Mac platform can send email notifications regarding success/failure. Perhaps the Windows version does too, if that is what you are using. The script that does the Mac email notifications is rather simple to modify to suit your needs.

 

Russ

[dmgaddy]

Thanks for your input. I have a variety of clients including Windows, MAC OS X, Windows SBS, Server 2003, and a couple of FreeBSD servers (but the Retrospect client doesn't work for those). We use Bacula for the FreeBSD backup jobs.

 

Russ,

I would be interested in seeing your email notification script for the MAC. I can see doing the same thing for my other machines except I have not found the trigger to fire the notification. We use Hostmonitor for the bulk of our systems monitoring. I was hoping to find something in the Application Event log that I could test but Retrospect doesn't seem to be writing to the log.

 

Maybe someone from EMC could share where the "History" reported in the Retrospect client is stored.

 

David G.

[dmgaddy]

From the Retrospect Users Guide. (pp 306)

 

Retrospect has fifteen events.... Retrospect client software has two of these events.

 

Any idea which two?

[rhwalker]

Quote:

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From the Retrospect Users Guide. (pp 306)

 

---

Interesting. The printed Retrospect 6 User's Guide has 258 pages and the PDF version has 256. I think that you are using some User's Guide that the rest of us don't have. See also below.

 

Quote:

---

Retrospect has fifteen events.... Retrospect client software has two of these events.

 

Any idea which two?

 

---

Sure, that's an easy one. Zero, Nada, Zip. The Mac OS X Retrospect Client does not support AppleScript. Only the Mac OS 7/8/9 client does (or did). Perhaps you are looking at some old documentation.

 

Russ

[dmgaddy]

Or some new documentation . . . .

 

Users Guide for Windows version 7.5

[rhwalker]

Ok, well, then sorry. I previously asked which platform, and your inquiry about events didn't say. I was answering for the Macintosh platform. Sorry that I made the wrong assumption.

 

Russ

[dmgaddy]

 

Not necessairily the wrong assumption since I do have MAC clients to consider. More importantly, you've put me in the right direction. For that I thank you.

 

Time being short, I will not be able to do any more on this until next week. So I will be back in touch later.

 

Thanks again.

 

David G.