M Appliances: how to do a backup or a way to do it

[arnaudbesnard]

Hello,

I will realize a replacement of deffect appliance Serie M but I don't want to lost all collecting data.
Do you have a idea?

Thanks for your help.

Regards,
Arnaud

[steven_geerts]

Support is not going to like me for this...
I had the same issue.. we had a defect RAM module in our M1050. After reporting it for RMA we received a complete new M1050 as replacement. (WOW!)
We had a hard time lobbying to see if we would get an agreement by our management on the loss of historical data this replacement would imply.
Finally we got permission from Ironport support to simply swap the RAM module and send back the new system with the broken module.
One of the promises I received from support was that backup/restore possibilities for the M series data was high on the priorities list and would be implemented soon.... until now I did not see any new functionality that's in line with that promise.

If you can identify the broken HW part yourselves you can give it a try to see if you can swap only that part. If it's your motherboard or your RAID you are in bad luck, both contain the serial number and those should match.

Good luck,

Steven

[arnaudbesnard]

Hello Steven,

Thanks for your tips.
I tried to have the same things about ironport support but it's not possible.

what was your issue concerning the problem.
My problem is E2119 CRC MEM. Is it the same that you.

Regards,
Arnaud

[steven_geerts]

Well...
If I managed to get their approval... i suppose you can do it too...

As said before: you need a long breath and a lot of “argumenting” for it.

I think the strongest argument you can use is the fact they store unique data on the devices without offering the possibility of backup/restore.
In my (and my management's) opinion it's not acceptable that they suggest you have to give up al your historical data for a broken memory module.
If they do not trust their customers in replacing simple hardware components like this, the least that can be done is offering the visit of a qualified support engineer who can/may do such changes.
After all the Ironport hardware is produced by Dell, and certified Dell hardware engineers are present in every (maybe nearly every) country.

The most optimal solution would of course be the possibility to backup and restore the contents of a M series device (including regular backup scenario’s to answer to “the unexpected”)

Keep your head up and, take a deep breath and try to convince your service engineer (over and over again)

Steven

[Alexander Krivoshein_ironport]

That's why we are bought two M and C series appliance's. M series appliance can be configured work with "redundance" by "secondaryconfig" command - it gives you a backup of logs and reporting data. Aslo you can make a content filter to duplicate spam quarantine messages.

That is my success story, i made this and advice to you.

[SPAMHater_ironport]

I think this should be provided free of charge until they can come up with a solution where you don't have to surrender the hardware with all of your historical data. This happen to us after about 30 days of running the M series. Seems like the RAID controller went bad, so they shipped me a refurbished unit with one bad NIC port! I did not mind since I was only going to use one port. When I called support to ask, how do I transfer my existing data over. I think they put me on mute and starting laughing!! Management was not to happy with the answer of we can't recover that data. Since then we were promised a second appliance, for redundancy. Still waiting!! Keeping fingers crossed that the M holds up. What happens when EOL comes around and we do have to replace the unit? All of our data gone out the window. They really need to provide a solution ASAP