The cost of Veritas, while higher than most, does have a rationale.  It is an 
Enterprise Class backup software; meaning it scales to hundreds or even 
thousands of machines, has support for virtually every client type (like AFS 
and NDMP), and has a lot of (ahem) features.

That being said I am not a fan myself but I don't think your environment gives 
them a fair shake.  My suggestion would be go with option 2.

If you are comfortable with the way Veritas works maybe look at their NBU 
Business class software (I believe that's the name anyway).  Or start pricing 
other software vendors.  I'm sure there are plenty who would love to oust 
Veritas.

Of course, given the apparent simplicity of your environment you may be just as 
well off with a free package like Amanda.  There are a few out there with 
support for Unix and Windows, and I hear nothing but good things from admins 
who use them.  Of course your support is the user community but in some cases 
that's better than vendor support.

~JK

> -----Original Message-----
> From: veritas-bu-admin AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu [mailto:veritas-bu-
> admin AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of Timothy Arnold
> Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 9:29 AM
> To: veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
> Subject: [Veritas-bu] Replacement for Netbackup
> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I have been looking to upgrade or Netbackup software from 3.4 to 5.0. We
> only do very simple scheduling for full backups and mostly backup Unix
> servers (30) with a couple of windows boxes thrown in for good measure. As
> I understand it, Netbackup 5.0 has some outstanding features like in-line
> copy to name one, but we don't use this features and maybe never will...
> 
> Unfortunately when we purchased Veritas Netbackup, we purchased it through
> Sun Microsystems and this is apparently not a supported upgrade path. With
> this is mind, our supplier quoted me over £26,000 for the software
> including all the client licenses and basic support costs, it seams to me
> this is very expensive for what we are actually going to use it for? What
> are the extra features that bump up this price tag, are they worth it?
> 
> I guess I have two options...
> 
> 1) Don't bother upgrading ....
> 
> 2) look for another product? Is there any other (cheaper) products
> available that you would recommend?
> 
> I honestly don't know how Veritas can sleep at night ...
> 
> Thanks,
> Tim.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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