ArcMail Defender

Server Support

I’m torn on this device. 

When we were first looking into an e-mail archiving solution I thought about ‘brewing my own’ since I didn’t figure that it could be that hard to use the Exchange journaling option to dump e-mail out to a Linux box running MySQL (which as near as I can tell is what the ArcMail Defender box is).  However I would be running the risk of having it go the same road as all my other Linux projects: a stable, low maintenance solution that’s preceded by a horrible, painful amount of configuration time (a time so painful that I might not finish it).  In this case that was time I didn’t have so we elected to go with the most cost effective solution, the mini-ATX ArcMail Defender.

I’ve have had to use the software that comes with the device twice to retrieve e-mails and it proved a trouble free task.  The box also helps me sleep easier at night since I know that there’s yet another e-mail backup running, one that runs all the time.  The only issue I have is the sketchy support.

If you go to the company’s front page you’ll notice (at least at this time) that there’s no link for support.  No support forums (usually the only source for decent online support anywhere anymore), no e-mail links (it’s support@arcmail.com) and no phone number (it’s 1-888-790-9252) all of which give the impression of a fly-by-night operation.  On top of that I’ve had four hardware issues with the box, three of which required ordering parts. 

I should note that the first issue occurred when we initially received the device.  While checking out the box to see what it was made of (it’s made of off-the-shelf parts) I noticed that the RAID card was improperly wired and seated.

I guess it’s like a lot of tech items: a dream when it works, not so much when it doesn’t.  I think I’d feel a lot sunnier about if ArcMail would turn their game up a notch.  Generic parts are fine, so long as they don’t fail and less rigorous tech support is acceptable, so long as your customers can get to it.

*What instigated this post was a hard drive replacement that took more than two weeks to get to me (they blamed UPS, which might be legit I guess) and subsequent late call back to tell me how to rebuild my RAID 1 set using the opaque RAID tools that come with the system.

Why?

Server Support

I applied an update to a virtual server sitting on Microsoft’s Hyper-V and rebooted it, but it didn’t come back up.  When I tried to start the virtual machine I received the error “Microsoft Emulated IDE Controller (Instance ID {GUID}): Failed to power on with Error ‘General access denied error'”.  The fix was to remove the hard drive from the virtual machine and re-add it.  What is up with that?!?

Backing Up Hyper-V

Server Support,

Microsoft’s Data Protection Manager (DPM) is a dream when it works, but I spend way too much time wrestling with it to make it work and the reports it issues to track jobs are worthless.  The whole experience reminds of Arcserve circa 1997: poorly made technology trying to do too much. 

It seems as if the software doesn’t miss a chance get a protection status of ‘Recovery point creation failed’ or ‘Replica is inconsistent’.  Why did it ‘fail’?  Why is it inconsistent?  Disk space seems to have something to do with it most of the time, but other times it just seems as if the software just got grumpy.  One of our servers is in an even worse state since any Windows Server 2008 backup (either the built-in or DPM) ends with a not entirely unknown  0x0000007E blue screen stop error. 

Is DPM going to be like Arcserve where it took CA six years to write a product that wouldn’t crash every time I went to back up Exchange?  I hope not.

Those Who Can’t Do, Do Computers

Uncategorized

I’d read a comment somewhere that insisted that tech pros should work to refute the claims made by shops like ‘computertraining.com’ that have been pummeling the radio.  I’d long thought that no one could believe that ad on it’s face, but apparently someone does as the place is still in business.

The wage claim by itself is false on it’s face.  It’s true that many MCSEs may make “$50,000 or more”, but only after a bit of experience and an aptitude that goes well beyond the certification.  Most people I’ve known (including myself) have gotten such certifications in order to show already obtained knowledge and (probably even more importantly) the initiative to go beyond the bare work requirements of their current job.  My best guess was that if someone managed to get Microsoft’s current equivalent of the MCSE with no experience, they might find someone who is willing to take a chance on them for $10 a hour, with those that are actually talented being able to double that rather quickly (a year or two at least).

Beyond that, a little Google search turns up repeated claims that the training offered by computertraining.com is around $20,000 which is, to put very mildly, an enormous sum.  As a comparison the going out-of-pocket costs for the tests themselves are no more than $1000 combined, and for the extra ambitious the training can be free.  Microsoft posts summaries of the content that appears on the exam and a method I’d used in the past was to download demos of the software (assuming full copies wouldn’t be available) and then learn all I could about the bullet points pertaining to the exam (with some Technet troubleshooting articles thrown in for good measure).

On that note, my personal feeling would be that if you did pay computertraining.com $20,000 for your certification, I probably wouldn’t think very much of your qualifications.  There’s no reason to use them, and every reason to avoid them.

Too Much At One Time

Server Support,

I’ve had quite a bit of off-hours work, but not a lot of off-hours time in which to do it (mostly having to do with house issues, apartment dwellers should forgive me for being jealous of them a fair portion of the time).  The end result of this is cramming several days worth of work into a window of a few hours.

Last night I had to patch several servers via Windows Update, upgrade the memory in one server (which required re-cabling due to a half installed cable arm), updated the MS DPM agent on two other servers, updated the firmware on our Barracuda spam firewall (which was the second Barracuda update in a row that created more problems than it solved), and replaced the batteries in our battery backup unit (which itself required carefully shutting down several different servers and processes).

After everything came back up I caught a non-production virtual machine that wasn’t starting (which will be a story for a different post), the Citrix servers were running slow, and I was having issues getting a database process to start correctly.  After wrestling with the host of issues for an hour and resolving them for the most part I took off while I was ahead, or so I thought.

In my rush to wrap up I forgot my cardinal rule when touching anything to do with e-mail: test with an outbound and reply it back.  That night my diagnosis of Exchange consisted of making sure Outlook wasn’t popping an error up in the tray before I got bogged down on the other issues.  To make matters worse a user e-mailed me to let me know it wasn’t working, but unfortunately he e-mailed me at the time when the server was down due to the battery replacement, so I thought nothing more of it and told him that it should be working (while I only testing the OWA splash page).  I admit that I also improperly relied on my Windows Mobile phone for testing, an unreliable device even when everything is working properly.

In the end the error was caused by the Exchange 2003 server booting up before (probably by seconds) any of the domain controllers and as a result most of the Exchange services did not start.  It’s worth noting that my near-production Exchange 2007 server did not experience this fault.  Long term I should have a more reliable test mechanism (this happened before after an extended power outage), but most of all I just need to remember to perform my diagnostic procedures before attempting to fix the first issue that grabs my time.