Backup Checks… the easy way

A look at automating and extending Spiceworksby

William Nel-Barker

Backup checks take too long to do!– Many customers

• If 5 minutes/customer x 60 customers = 3 hrs/day!

– Need to maintain quality of Service • Techie time can be far better spent than on checks• Yet backups are essential• And so backup checks are essential• Need to automate it

The Problem

– Spiceworks was designed for single site• Remote Collector adds support for multiple sites

– No native support for multiple customers• But customers may be added as devices

– No easy way to get data into/out of Spiceworks• E-mailing data to Spiceworks is safe• Reading directly from the database is safe• Custom scripts needed

The Limitations

– Insert data into Spiceworks safely• E-mail helpdesk• NEVER write to the database!

– Get data out of Spiceworks safely• Read the database directly

– Notifications arrive by e-mail• Need to automate Outlook• Mail rules within Outlook

– Auto-create Backup Check tickets• Scheduled script that e-mails the helpdesk

The Challenge

– Bullet-proof the checks• 3 categories: Success, Failure & No Notification• No Notification is treated as failure!

– Successful backups• Auto-close the ticket

– Failed backups• Ticket remains open & techie investigates failure• Ticket is updated with status• Account manager is auto-cc’d

The Process

– Automate creation of tickets• Scheduled VBScript• Customer (as device) has custom field checkbackup• VBScript reads from Spiceworks database• If checkbackup = Yes then create ticket• We control which customers has a backup check ticket created

from within Spiceworks

– Automate Outlook• Mail rule to run a script is conditions are met• Script (VBA) exports message as MSG.TXT file• VBA Script calls external VBScript• VBScript reads MSG.TXT

The Plan

• Reads MSG.TXT and looks for certain fields within it• Mail From tells us who the customer is• Date tells us when the message was sent• IF-THEN loops within VBScript for each customer• SQL query unique for each customer• Connects to Spiceworks DB and gets ticket NR• Sends e-mail to update the ticket, e.g. backup

succeeded, so #close the ticket

The VBScript

• Not all customers use the same backup software• Backup notifications are different• Small Business Server is in Daily Summary Report• Backup Exec, Altaro, Yosimite, etc send dedicated e-

mail• We need to support all these methods

IF-THEN loops

Example notifications• Backup Exec: (Server: “< Servername >") (Job: "Full

Server") The job completed successfully. However, the following conditions were encountered: 29 files were skipped.

• Backup Exec: (Server: “<Servername>") (Job: "Daily Backup") Daily Backup -- The job failed with the following error: The item could not be opened while in use.

• SBS 2003 Report: Backup: Completed successfully • SBS 2008/2011 Report: Backup OK• Altaro: Successful backup <virtualservername>• Altaro: Failed backup <virtualservername>

The Notifications

Example IF-THEN loop

If strEmail = "administrator@CustomerName.co.uk" then strCust = "CustomerName" strSql = "select * from `tickets` WHERE c_backup_status = 'To be checked' AND status = 'open' and description = 'Do daily backup check for CustomerName' AND created_at >= " & strDate If InStr(strMsg,"Backup Exec Alert: Job Failed (Server:") >30 thenstrBody = vbCrLf & "CustomerName - The last backup failed."strCmd = "#set c_backup_status=Failed" End If If InStr(strMsg,"The job completed successfully") >30 thenstrBody = vbCrLf & "CustomerName - Last backup: Backup was successful."strCmd = "#set c_backup_status=OK" End If

Building it

select * from `tickets` - get everything from the Tickets tableWHERE c_backup_status = 'To be checked' – This value is set by the script that creates the ticketAND status = 'open' AND description = 'Do daily backup check for CustomerName' – We want tickets for a particular customerAND created_at >= " & strDate – We can play with the date to allow for weekends

The SQL

From: Zantra JAD Backup Checks Sent: 16 May 2012 11:29To: SpiceworksSubject: [Ticket #4303] Customername - do daily Windows backup checks on 16/05/2012

-Summary- -This allows us to cherry-pick what goes into our monthly reports

Customername - Last backup: Windows backup was successful

#assign Backup - Dedicated account to assign backup tickets to#set c_backup_status=OK - Custom value that makes it easy to run a report#close - Successful backup, let’s close the ticket!

Recognise this? We’re using Tickets Anywhere!

The E-mail

• We automate backup checks• We auto-close successful backup tickets• We have fail-safes designed into the process• We add customers as devices• We use My Ticket Rules to auto-relate tickets to

customers (devices)• We extensively use custom fields• We NEVER write to the database• We save many hours each day

The Overview

– Flexible system– Allows support for ANY alerting system – As long as alerts are by e-mail– Spiceworks How-to will be published

The Future

The End