Autonomy Connected Backup - anyone using it on Mac clients?

[donmontalvo]

In the spirit of leveraging existing infrastructure, we want to start testing Autonomy Connected Backup on Macs.

This used to be an Iron Mountain product, sold off to Autonomy:

http://backup.ironmountain.com

Their latest version as of today is 8.6.2 and apparently it does not yet support Mountain Lion.

external image link

Is anyone using this in their environment? I know it is very widely used (client list is staggering) on the PC side, but I haven't seen much on the usual forums on the Mac client.

Anyone using it? Can you offer any feedback?

PS, I added "Autonomy" and "Connected Backup" to the third party section...unfortnately the popup menus don't yet list it (I guess JAMF are screening entries?).

Thanks,
Don

[jarednichols · Accepted solution]

I don't use it currently but did at my last job. They were in the process of transitioning it to Autonomy when I was there. I'm sort of surprised to hear that they haven't qualified it for ML yet as they were very good about the Lion-supported release.

[nkalister · Accepted solution]

I tested their Lion client and had no issues. i liked it quite a bit, in fact, but we were forced to go with another solution for non-technical reasons.

[MikeF · Accepted solution]

We are currently using it and I am not to happy with it. Out results so far is it will usually complete with errors though if outlook is open. However we are testing a new version now and it seems to be better It did finish my backup this morning with Outlook open. I am using version 8.6.2.2 HF4

[jarednichols · Accepted solution]

Huh interesting article. I think it's a shame that Iron Mountain let their Connected Backup go. It's actually a good product once you wrap your head around it. I think they really just want to be in the physical document business.

[jarednichols · Accepted solution]

I don't use it currently but did at my last job. They were in the process of transitioning it to Autonomy when I was there. I'm sort of surprised to hear that they haven't qualified it for ML yet as they were very good about the Lion-supported release.

[nkalister · Accepted solution]

I tested their Lion client and had no issues. i liked it quite a bit, in fact, but we were forced to go with another solution for non-technical reasons.

[donmontalvo]

@jarednichols and @nkalister Thanks for your responses, this is good news.

We ran a test with a test user (Mountain Lion) and the backup completed overnight. It was a full backup, I'm certain incrementals run going forward.

I don't have admin access to the Connected Backup server (yet; request put in today), so in the mean time I asked my colleague who does have admin rights to restore only the MUD folder to the user's ~/Desktop folder.

Will post results once restore is completed (hopefully backup won't fail if the user has Outlook open).

Many thanks for the responses, very helpful. :)

Don

[MikeF · Accepted solution]

We are currently using it and I am not to happy with it. Out results so far is it will usually complete with errors though if outlook is open. However we are testing a new version now and it seems to be better It did finish my backup this morning with Outlook open. I am using version 8.6.2.2 HF4

[donmontalvo]

I wonder how this is going to effect support... ;)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2012/11/20/with-autonomy-h-p-bought-an-old-fashioned-accoun...

BUSINESS | 11/20/2012 @ 10:44AM |48,771 views With Autonomy, H-P Bought An Old-Fashioned Accounting Scandal. Here's How It Worked.

[jarednichols · Accepted solution]

Huh interesting article. I think it's a shame that Iron Mountain let their Connected Backup go. It's actually a good product once you wrap your head around it. I think they really just want to be in the physical document business.

[donmontalvo]

I finally got full admin access to the Connected server. I created a Rule Set for Macs, with a Rule to backup only /Users/*/Documents/Microsoft User Data folders, excluding the Database file. We're excluding that file since we've had problems in the past restoring MUD, the file goes south and we end up having to rebuild it anyway - this way the user launches Outlook after a restore and it rebuilds automagically. We submitted a correction for page 125/126 of their admin guide (since there is no need to trigger rebuild after restore).

Surprisingly, once we set things up on the server end and generated an agent installer, it validated fine (kudos to the developer for proper MPKG installer following Apple guidelines - no surprises!).

Tested on Mountain Lion, agent was unable to communicate with server (not officially supported but wanted to test anyway).

Testing on Lion today, hope we get successful backup, testing the same way with test user logged in and Outlook open.

Once we're done testing we hope to be able to provide the agent via push, as well as Self Service (if it's not installed)...not sure yet if the agent updates itself when the server is updated (hoping it does).

PS, we also plan to test backups with computer logged off...seems to support this as the Users/*/Documents/Microsoft User Data path is hard coded into their Rules Library templates, so hoping all users are backed up.

Don

[ctangora · Accepted solution]

So far I have not had any issues with it running the latest version and on Mt. Lion.

[donmontalvo]

@ctangora Hi Chris, that's encouraging...have you tried restoring Outlook 2011 yet?

Also are you on 8.6.2 or are you on a higher version like Mike (@MikeF)? The reason I ask, Autonomy told us 8.6.2 is the latest version, but there appears to be newer versions out there.

[jarednichols]

Don, dumb question:
Why even bother backing up their MUD folder if everything is on Exchange? We specifically excluded all local mail stores for Mail, Outlook/Entourage and Thunderbird.

[donmontalvo]

@jarednichols That's actually a good question. Users have limited Exchange mailbox space, so they archive locally when their Exchange mailbox gets full. All that data is in the MUD folder so the client wants us to back it up. There is an Exchange offline (server based) archiving system in place for PC's, I'm looking into testing to see if we can get it to work with the Macs (apparently there was some testing with an older version that was not successful).

[jarednichols]

Oh god. You're relying on users?! Lets hope the archives is Symantec Enterprise Vault. There's no Mac client plugin, but the web interface isn't terribly bad for the times you need to go back into the archive. My last job archived things over a year old and that seemed to be a good balance to keep the exchange boxes small enough and users not needing to go back into the archive very frequently.

[donmontalvo]

We're not - the client is. Let's just say we're changing the client's perception that Macs are not compatible and therefore "out of scope" when it comes to integrating with existing infrastructure... ;)

[ctangora]

There are a few errors every backup, but everything appears to be saved. The server side reports back unknown OS for Mt. Lion. We're on 8.6.0.2.

[ctangora]

Sorry, should have qualified. The user can setup specifics on the backup. I have chosen to not backup the MUD as everything should be on the server.

Getting some warnings about saved.state files missing from initial scan to actual backing up. But no show stoppers yet.

[gachowski]

Strange our Autonomy support said that it was support on MT. They even said that they would support the previous agent on MT. After I had it running on beta MT.

[donmontalvo]

@gachowski Wow, that's actually good news. If you don't mind my asking, what version are you on?

[gachowski]

So, the about box says 8.6.2 but if you get info about the app. 14.2.0.0061

[jarednichols]

I don't know if they version it, but you may be better doing a get info on /Library/Application Support/Connected Backup/AgentService

That's the actual agent binary.

[donmontalvo]

So I got in touch with our Exchange group, they told us we are using Autonomy EAS for archiving email.

Kind of ironic, we're testing Autonomy Connected Backup for Mac, but according to our Exchange group, the Autonomy EAS is not compatible with Mac?!

Can someone verify what version they are using, and if it supports Mac clients?

PS, Jarred, it's OK to say 'I told you so'...LOL

external image link

[jarednichols]

I told you so... again. :)

I'm taking an educated guess that the reason Autonomy EAS isn't compatible with OS X is because of Microsoft and not HP/Autonomy. From what Symantec has said with their Enterprise Vault product, Microsoft has not exposed any APIs that developers can use to create equivalent products on the Mac.

[donmontalvo]

I'll open a ticket with Autonomy to get a firm answer on Mac support.

Hopefully these Autonomy products will survive once the dust settles...

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-11-20/fbi-said-to-be-looking-into-hp-s-allegations-on-autonomy

[isradame]

Does it work with FileVault 2?

[gachowski]

Israel,

We have not seen any issues using it FileVault 2, beside that you have to use the CLI to install it.

I will admit that we are not really looking for them : )

C

[donmontalvo]

I believe the user has to be logged in for backups to occur, so File Vault 2 shouldn't be a problem?

Don

[Lhsachs]

While testing Autonomy Connected, I'm able to back up. I have not been able to restore email to a different machine. Are there limitations?

[donmontalvo]

Hi Lenny,

Is there an email archiving solution in place? If so, the MUD folder may not need to be backed up.

Don

[evarona]

@donmontalvo, interesting post. We're also a Connected shop for Windows (since before HP and even Iron Mountain). We've been backing up Macs for a couple of years. We rolled out v8.6.4.2 a while back without issues
HOWEVER...
I just found out from my techs that we've never done a restore to another machine. I'd been backing up for a year and my SSD went belly up last week (flashing folder w/ "?" at boot). I rebuilt but have to figure out how to reinstall CNB and restore with my old account number, which I do have. Do you have any words of wisdom or command line options to share? Thanks.

[donmontalvo]

@evarona wrote:

I just found out from my techs that we've never done a restore to another machine.

Part of designing/implementing a backup solution is ensuring backups actually work. I'd get a paper trail going on this, to ensure the team responsible for the solution have a true backup (and restore) system in place. ;)

"Because it's the Restore That Matters." - Tim Jones (TolisGroup CTO)

Don

[evarona]

Thanks Don. Unfortunately, I have no say over design of this system but agree with you. Fortunately for me, my CNB admin came back from holiday today and pointed me to the "Reinstall Agent" option of the service center. Worked like a charm except that the app is not "Apple or identified developer" signed so I had to bypass GateKeeper. I've asked if the vendor can provide a signed version that is compatible. Let's see what comes back.

Thanks.

[gachowski]

Emil, As long as Autonomy build the .pkg on a windows server I don't think they can sign the installer. We have to manually download the .pkg and script the install for our techs.

C

[Jpcorzo]

Hello everyone, i hope y'all had a great weekend. I wanted to post this here even thou it is not a JAMF related issue but it has to do with Connected Backup, and seems most of you have used it.
The application works great for the first few months, after a while there's something in the system that is triggering the connected backup to fail within the first 5 to 9 seconds. When i check the logs the only thing i get is:
-Failed to detect separator in CFilePath Constructor for path 99
-CProtocolSessionQueue::Run() caught an unexpected C_CEexception.
I have a case opened with Autonomy already but they haven't been able to figure out either were the point of failure is.
Up to right now the only solution is to re-image the device, but i would like to get to the root cause of it. Not everyone is very happy with a re-image.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

[jhbush]

Resurrecting an old thread, but would some you mind detailing how you were deploying this? It reminds me of Mozy were you had to have codes, etc..

[donmontalvo]

@jhbush1973][/url In one large multimedia environment ("Why so serious"), we deployed the PKG as-is, and users had to launch and enter their credentials for the server to set up backups for that Mac and for that user to "own" the backups.

In one large retailer ("Giant Sinking Ship") we set deployed with a bit of scripting and launchd stuff, to capture the username and automagically configure the agent for that user, transparent to the user. The challenge we had was the Mac enviroment appeared to never have been fully migrated from forest to domain, so user accounts varied from CORPjdoe to CORP jdoe to ACMEjdoe to ACME jdoe...to the desired jdoe. So we had to move their Macs over to domain first (we scripted that too), so everyone was logging in with jdoe short name, then allow the configuration to happen.

I need to sanitize the info before posting, the usual proprietary info concerns, but happy to chat offline if you need this now.

[jcavallino]

We are starting to have problems with mac client verison 8.6.2 ever since our users installed the Mavericks update of 10.9.2. Our windows clients backup fine so i am going to have to open a ticket with support and find out what is going on. I personally don't like the product at all. It fails constantly on windows and osx . They always have network issues and i don't its a great product just forced to support it. :( Anyone have a clue all of sudden its failing, could it be the ssl fix they included in the update? Apple could've patched that security hole.

[jhbush]

@jcavallino][/url I haven't seen issues here with 10.9.2 outside the usual errors when backing up. Autonomy fails if you have certain files open or apps. We use the hosted version of the solution. We aren't LDAP integrated, but I'm working on that at the moment. The code and extra accounts that need setup just to backup is crazy. I would love to switch to Crash Plan PROe, but that may have to wait until next year.

[jcavallino]

@jhbush1973- I hear that. But we are a AD and just client side macs and i have casper running for the mac side but on a windows server. So connected serves 90% of the windows side but the mac side is probbally at 10% right now.I just need to know if there is a newer verison for connected than i can deploy that. Do you know which apps are mainly affected when connected is open and trying to backup? That would be awesome

[jhbush]

@jcavallino we are running client version 8.8.0.2 of Connected Backup for Mac. I see the backup errors with Outlook the most.

[#44]

This discussion seems to be the most relevant place to link the post my colleague made regarding Connected Backup and Java and then some. I'll link it here with hopes that it's helpful to others using this same software.

Connected Backup, java, and some lousy version checking code