How often to backup?

I have been spending a lot of time thinking about our backup solution lately. I am impressed by some of the new solutions like the bdr backup device but not impressed by the price. It backs up every 15mins which is that really necessary? Maybe it is maybe not. I think the price is outrageous considering its just a simple server with software. Never affraid to try it on my own I have been looking to create my own server that does the same thing.
1. Backs up multiple servers to a single server.
2. Will virtualize that server if it fails.
3. Will send backups off site.

Currently we backup nightly and it has been tested and works as planned. It will even do a bare metal restore to dissimilar hardware. But what happened last year is our raid card failed. Cant pick one of those up locally so we had to order one. Well it took 3 days to get here. So I had to setup a temp server in the mean time and that wasn't fast either so I am looking to a solution to avoid that.
I know tamonline is an option but it isn't a great option for us as we use our server for more then just tam. So do I just stock a whole spare server just for parts? Which seems expensive and wasteful for it just to sit there.

More to come as I try to solve these problems.

Let me know how you have solved some of these problems?

Josh

Going paperless with night utilities

Are you tired of the 10+ pieces of paper that print out every night with night utilities?
I came up with 2 solutions to this problem. The key to this is you need a pdf creator that auto saves the print out without asking for a name.

1. http://en.pdfforge.org/pdfcreator its a free software called pdf creator. I installed it on the server and under options auto save I put this command \\servername\users\<REDMON_USER>\PDF\ replace servername with the name of your server and the path to the users directory. It will auto put the file in the users home directory under a pdf folder. There is another command that will auto email the file to the user also but its not 100% reliable. (let me know if you want that code)
So in the morning the night util person just opens the pdfs and reviews them or forwards them on to who needs them.
The key to this is pdfcreator has to be your default printer before starting night utils then in the morning you can change your default printer to what you want it to be just dont forget to change it back before you run night utils again.

2. If you have a version of acrobat where you can print to pdf (not the free version) you can use that.
a. go to control panel > printers
b. right click on adobe pdf click properties
c. click printing preferences button on general tab.
d. click adobe pdf settings tab at the top.
e. adobe pdf output folder (default is prompt for a filename) change that to a directory of your choice.
f. make adobe pdf your default printer before you start night utils and check the output directory you defined in step e in the morning.

I use the first option as its a great utility for the rest of the office also and its free.
Contact me if you have questions or comments.

Josh

Upgrading inscope to 10.2.2

Inscope Relay agent seemed to update fine.
Inscope Data service popped up with an error about the pdf printer uninstall.
Remember during data service install it needs admin access so fill out the password screen this way. domain\administrator

Reinstalling data service to see if the error will be fixed.
Reinstall fixed the error and all seems to be running fine it reinstalled the pdf printer component which is what it hung on the first time.

It also comes up with an error stating you are installing inscope 10.2 on tam 10.3 I hit ok since this is the latest version and it seems to work fine. Normally tam versions and inscope versions dont line up.

Run Time Error 91

Run Time Error 91 Object Variable or with block variable not set.
Received this error after upgrading to 10.3 you get this error right after you put in your password and before the homebase screen loads.

This morning this happened on a windows vista machine.

I fixed it by
1. Delete or rename the c:\wintam directory
2. Start run "g:\wintam\tamini /r "
3. Start run "g:\wintam\asupdate /rr" Where g is your Tam Drive.

Then the station loaded correctly.
I received this error on the machine I did the upgrade on Friday morning so the weird part is the vista machine ran tam just fine on Friday but now come monday it came up with the error and just asupdate didn't fix it.

Update to 10.3

So this morning I updated us from 10.2 to 10.3 the install went well no errors. The station I did the install from (which I did via remote desktop from bed this morning before anyone was at work) came up with an error on first launching tam. The error was fixed by running g:\wintam\asupdate /rr (which re registers all of the tam components) That fixed the error and it was off to try it on some other stations.
So far most of our other stations have had no problems updating to 10.3 and work is going as usual.

Will update more later as I attempt to upgrade inscope to the latest version.

Josh

Hello welcome to My Life with Tam

Hello I am Josh Conner I work for an insurance agency in Indianapolis In. We have about 20 employees we run Applied Systems Tam with Inscope add on. We are in the process of going paperless

I plan on using this blog to share some of the tips and other information I discover using tam in an agency.

I am a member of the central Indiana applied user group and run their website. http://www.appliedusergroup.com

Enough about me back to the tips.