We’re trying to hold back since we got seriously burnt when we upgraded from 5.1MPsomething to 6.0MP3.  However, there are a lot of things that we need in 6.5 – Linux FlashBackup, Linux ACL support, VMware consolidated backups, etc.  Some things in there are nice to have but not necessarily a need to have.  BMR would be really nice for us too as is the LiveUpdate support for the Windows clients.  New client support may also drive us upgrading (SharePoint 2007) sooner rather than later.

I realize that 6.5 didn’t have the rewrite of major pieces of code like 6.0 did but we’re still quite gun-shy.  MP1 probably won’t be out until the end of the year and if nobody upgrades to 6.5, we won’t see many fixes in MP1 – that’s the problem that made 6.0MP3 still a rotten release.   Once users upgraded to MP3, some of the critical bug reports rolling in got the executive’s attention and 6.0 didn’t stabilize until MP4.

I guess what that really means is that we, as a customer base, have lost faith in Symantec’s QA.  We should be excited about upgrading, not scared.    If I trade in my car for a new model, I’d be excited and wouldn’t be worried about it letting me down within a week.  I can’t say that about NetBackup.  And that’s really, really sad…

   …/Ed

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Ed Wilts, RHCE, BCFP, BCSD

Mounds View, MN, USA

mailto:ewilts AT ewilts DOT orrg