This document discusses automating backup checks in Spiceworks to reduce the amount of time spent manually checking backups. It proposes using scripts to [1] automatically create backup check tickets, [2] process backup notification emails to update the tickets, and [3] close tickets for successful backups. The scripts would parse email notifications for different backup software, query the Spiceworks database to get ticket details, and send updates to tickets via email. This process aims to safely automate backup monitoring and reduce technician time spent on repetitive checks.

1. Backup Checks… the easy way
A look at automating and extending Spiceworks
by
William Nel-Barker

2. The Problem
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

3. The Limitations
– 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

4. The Challenge
– 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

5. The Process
– 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

6. The Plan
– 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

7. The VBScript
• 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

8. IF-THEN loops
• 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

9. The Notifications
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>

10. Building it
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 then
strBody = vbCrLf & "CustomerName - The last backup failed."
strCmd = "#set c_backup_status=Failed"
End If
If InStr(strMsg,"The job completed successfully") >30 then
strBody = vbCrLf & "CustomerName - Last backup: Backup was
successful."
strCmd = "#set c_backup_status=OK"
End If

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

12. The E-mail
From: Zantra JAD Backup Checks
Sent: 16 May 2012 11:29
To: Spiceworks
Subject: [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!

13. The Overview
• 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

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

15. The End