How to Learn Veritas?

Tue May 11 12:17:07 PDT 2004

So, I have inherited something Ugly.

It is a Veritas Backup Exec system running on a Windows box.

I have half a dozen hosts, I think, with some sort of backup failures.

One of the jobs that has many failures has a box I can expand to list
errors.  It highlights two lines that start with the string "Backup -"
but it lists half a dozen cryptic errors.  Most are of the form "Unable
to attach to foo.." but a few are "Unable to attach to C:."

I admin by going through Windows TS on my Windows laptop.  My primary
workstation is FreeBSD. :)

Just talking to the Backup Exec gives me a headache.

The guy who used to work here gave me a quick tour of how things are
done, explaining that yeah, a lot of the time, say, the password to log
in to a Windows remote host doesn't work, or the backup agent needs to
be rebooted, or the backup system needs to be rebooted.

I've only ever been the junior admin to other Veritas gurus.

So ... what does anyone suggest?  Or whatever input:

If I want to learn the system, where's the best spot to jump in?  What's
the best book to read?

Or ...

Is a more Windows-friendly non-SA (Sr. NOC tech, or Tech Support)
perhaps better qualified?  I can try to hand this off to someone who
might be better capable of earning a clue.

Or ...

Hire a consultant to do a system audit / overhaul / give us
documentation for day-to-day administration?