I apologize, in advance, to those on this list, as I know this is not an
Arcserve listserv, but it still does aid others in issues of a backup
nature.

Zlatko,
        Well, being that this is a public forum we all "try" our best to
offer the information we know to be true, directly from our experience, and
not "off the cuff". In this spirit, I will answer your somewhat pointed
"questions" (if they were even questions) drawn from this experience.


Answers:
"Fought": Yes we have 8 or more months invested in e-mails on E-support,
and direct support calls. We contacted our representatives in Islandia, NY
who have direct input into tech groups that work on this sort of stuff. Were
"WE" the only ones? Absolutely not! but we definitely did our part to add in
this, through constant bringing up of the issues that were wrong.

"Was is so broken?": Yes! At best, the DBAgent worked 1-2 days out of 5.

"95% operational": Now that CA has come out with hot fixes for SP3 and now
SP4 the brick level is backing up smooth, however it still will hiccup and
revert back to old errors. Now it works 3-4 out of 5 days.

"What are the rest 5%": The other 5% are same issues that we had been
dealing with before SP3 and hot fix, only they still have no solid answer
for why it happens.

"What was the percentage before those 8 months?": Before the 8 months? We
were lucky to get 1 good brick level, let alone information store backup.
Everyday the same issues with no resolution.

"Tolerable": We can deal with one missed differential backup. As far as
not fixed? I am speaking of those constant caveats that use to happen before
CA's post SP3 fixes.

"TSM does NOT do brick level restores because Microsoft does not do it":
Actually, this statement is not true. According to Veritas, Microsoft does
use their agent and they DO backup bricks on exchange 5.5 servers. All-be-it
they may only do it for "Management/administration". Microsoft still does
it.

Yes, it is true that M.S. has not changed their API's, but all that says to
me is that CA and Veritas are supplying a 3rd party service to ease
administration, and for TSM not to "get in the game" is sort of a shame.
For those companies who do not have the budget to have a 2nd Exchange server
standing by for mailbox recovery or D.S., the ability to restore a mail
folder or message is a "big plus", regardless of the technical explanation
of how its done, it is still a big plus.

Yes there was talk regarding M.S> possibly doing this, however, back 1-2
months ago some one also stated that TSM might be looking into this in the
later versions of 5.x.

As for your joke, it has no teachable relevance.  I can restore a mail
folder using the dbagent, quicker than I would be able to do it had I just
backed up the information store alone, and resorted to Microsoft's way of
restoring this mail.